North America

Investor Wilbur Ross has always had an eye for a deal, but is he the right choice for an economy that is embracing new technology faster than any other?

Mexico has climbed two positions in Euromoney’s latest quarter results, ranking 37th out of 186 monitored countries, but the new US presidency has analysts worried.

The US president-elect has talked tough on China, but he could be good news for China’s economy and its currency.

The application of fintech to wholesale banking is, to date, less clear than in retail financial services, where peer-to-peer lenders, start-up remittance companies, crowdfunders and robo-advisers are quickly picking up market share from the incumbents. It is more likely that fintech startups will collaborate with and sell to the incumbents in capital markets than disintermediate them. But they will still transform those markets and the business leaders.

Much of what counts as the modern study of economics consists merely of advanced mathematical modelling of financial markets, and the election of Donald Trump now renders it mostly worthless.

Investor risk has been rising this year with fears over Brexit, China, the oil price slump, eurozone debts and global conflict weighing heavily on portfolio decision-making. The shock impact of the Republican victory has made the picture even murkier and sent assets into a tailspin.

Better hedging seems to have enabled the FX market to shrug off concerns over Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections, with some strong moves in Asian trading giving way to more restraint when European markets opened.

Regional FX volatility and capital outflows likely to hit LatAm; biggest risk comes from protectionism policies in the medium term.

As the US enters the final week of a long and bitter election, and with the High Court throwing the UK’s Brexit plans into doubt, political uncertainty has been the chief driver of the currency markets.

Clinging on to modest IB ranking; municipalities show their clout over ethics scandals.

Exits structured products businesses; splits Mittelstandsbank between corporates and retail division.

S&P E-mini trader faces US regulatory charges; academics dispute ‘flash crash’ connection.

European activism reaches record levels; softer approach contrasts with US aggression.

Brexit threatens eurozone, but region still crucial to global banks.

Even amid stories of clients cutting exposure to Deutsche over concerns regarding the DoJ investigation, the bank still benefited from rising customer volumes in the third quarter, as did other European banks.

As political tensions around income inequality rise, so too does pressure on banks to hire employees from more varied backgrounds. While some have been early adopters of diversity, there is much still to do.

The final ruling on Section 385 has been made, with significant dispensation to allow corporates to continue with cash pooling.

Has Jamie Dimon been taking public speaking lessons from Donald Trump? Watching a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the Institute of International Finance (IIF) in Washington recently, where he sat alongside Mike Corbat and James Gorman, you'd be forgiven for thinking so.

Global banks are in retreat. Some countries stand on the brink of exclusion from the conventional financial system.

The topic of Brexit was never going to be far from the minds of delegates at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the Institute of International Finance, both being held this week in Washington, DC. And on Friday afternoon, delegates got a chance to hear the views of three vocal US bank chief executives — Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan, Mike Corbat of Citi and James Gorman of Morgan Stanley.

CEO John Stumpf may yet be forced out; analysts split over stock prospects.

The Wells Fargo scandal has once again put ethics at the heart of the debate about the future of banking. Regulation is clearly not working. Now an eclectic group of behavioural scientists, moral psychologists and spiritual leaders are stepping in to solve the problem. Will anyone on Wall Street listen?

US bank winds down GCF business; concern over BNY Mellon dominance.

White House report baffles community bankers; a quarter of small credit unions closed.

The brutal grilling of chief executive John Stumpf before the Senate banking committee is just the beginning of investigations that will embroil Wells Fargo and damage its peers.

For decades the world’s banks followed their multinational corporate customers across borders and built up international networks to finance trade and serve surging capital flows. Now those cross-border flows of traded goods lag even weak global GDP growth. Nationalism is on the rise. The era of the global banks may have already ended with the financial crisis. Is the entire concept of global banking at risk too?

Goldman Sachs almost certainly made a good investment when it paid Hillary Clinton $675,000 for three speeches.

Unlike the contrarian investors who would welcome some creative disruption to market certainties, most bankers seem to fear the turmoil that could well follow an election victory for Donald Trump.

The market had anticipated the Fed would use its last speech before its September rates decision to prep the ground for a hike, but the audience was instead given a list of reasons for the Bank not to act. The market reaction underlines the diminishing returns of ultra-loose monetary policy.

Predicting interest rates is not an Olympic sport, but the job of discerning what the Fed has planned is arguably as taxing as anything Rio is serving up. With economic signals strikingly mixed, and forward guidance offering little additional insight, economists appear to have little conviction in their predictions regarding the Fed's intentions.