Western Europe

One of the stars of Estonia’s post-Soviet generation, André Küüsvek, talks to Euromoney about escaping lockdown in Kazakhstan, expanding the NIB’s environmental remit and the risks posed by rising inequality.

While big banks and institutional investors spent years trying to bend blockchain for use in traditional finance, they missed out on the boom in crypto prices and the income from decentralized finance. Now, alarmed by stretched valuations and zero yields in conventional markets, they just want in. The race is on to build a sturdy infrastructure to support the stream of old money into new digital assets that could become a flood.

A new analysis of European banks by ShareAction finds that while some firms distinguish themselves in some climate and biodiversity practices, the overall picture is of a sector that still has much work to do.

Deutsche Bank’s restructuring has not been thrown off course by the pandemic, but upside surprises can hide risks. Discipline will be needed to avoid the temptations of the past.

This time last year, Euromoney recognized progress at Deutsche Bank as the best transformation story of 2020. Twelve months on, the German lender might be getting its act together at last. Can it sustain its recovery?

Two years ago, Deutsche pulled back in ECM. Now, in Asia, it wants back in.

In September, the EU will issue bills through the auction system operated by the Banque de France for the French Trésor. But they will not immediately be a reference safe asset for European capital markets.

As fintechs approach 10% of the banking and payments universe, the pioneer venture investor and founder of Capital One says banks must learn to partner with them or begin to lose ground.

David Wildermuth, the new chief risk officer at Credit Suisse, may have much of the heavy lifting done by the time he arrives at his desk in Zurich.

It is the deal everyone was waiting for – but UniCredit CEO Andrea Orcel has to appear guarded, as he enters exclusive negotiations with Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena.

Recent reports concerning a payment made by Deutsche Bank to Europe’s largest winery are a reminder that disputes over FX derivatives mis-selling have yet to run their course.

The Swiss bank claims a resilient performance lies beneath the meagre returns after de-risking post-Archegos and Greensill, but big questions remain.

More focus on keeping a client happy than keeping the bank solvent; a risk management department that wasn’t tough enough and enabled bad practice; a willful reduction in margin; and two co-heads who each believed the other ran the relevant business. The report into Credit Suisse’s Archegos debacle makes grim reading.

The big question remains when governments will return to fiscal consolidation. How will NPLs fare when taxpayer support is withdrawn is also in doubt.

Barclays wants to be compared with the big five US investment banks. So let’s do that.

With investors already struggling to generate positive yields on most money market funds, managers are concerned that proposed legislative changes could render some funds unviable.

The EU’s Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF) is spurring talk of growth at Greek banks. But for their investors, it’s still all about last decade’s legacy.

The $33 billion valuation in neobank Revolut’s latest funding round puts it in the same league as lenders with trillions of assets and billions in profit.

Banks are slowly realising the commercial promise of data and data analytics products, but there is still a long way to go for many institutions to move beyond services that deliver limited business insight.

As Covid cases surge, the widespread hope that economic growth will contain defaults and banks will emerge unscathed looks optimistic.

Despite concerns over recent regulatory changes, synthetic risk transfers remain a key driver for business lending in markets where private investment is underdeveloped.

New platforms that underwrite and process invoices due from large creditworthy payers may encourage bank and institutional financing for small and medium-sized enterprises.

New FX platform MillTechFX reckons that rather than cannibalizing existing trading activity, it can generate new flows for its counterparty banks by undercutting standard exchange rates.

That distant sound is the warning bell as bond investors’ desperate search for yield leads them down ever-risker paths.

The French lender’s wealth management university, introduced in 2017, is central to its ability to train private bankers to reach out and serve the high-net-worth clients the bank cannot afford to lose.

Fintechs are caught in a brutal competitive squeeze between losses on businesses they are good at and the urgent need to offer new ones.

More fintechs are selling out to big incumbent banks, but the German pair would rather merge to achieve their vision of savings as a service.

The European Commission keeps pressing, but a consolidated tape for bonds is not yet realistic – and firms should use AI analytics to create a quasi-tape.

The past year has shown how building a corporate and investment bank more equivalent to its standing in retail could be a vital prop to Santander’s earnings, especially in Europe. Does divisional head José Maria Linares now have the backing to match his ambitions?

What worries the wealthy most? It is a question that provides answers the rest of us would be wise to heed.