Western Europe

European banks are investing in and using the tools of an AI startup applying deep learning to syndicated loans, asset management and, soon to come, primary bond markets.

Lay-offs part of 'disciplined' strategy targeting growth in UK and US.

Banks in the eurozone periphery have need, and some justification, for a new targeted LTRO.

UniCredit’s €3 billion deal is a harsh demonstration of market dynamics.

Italian banks and the government at risk of failure within 12 months; signs of a more reconciliatory attitude to the EU.

Technology companies are looking to create digital workers to help banks build leaner operations – but human workers have nothing to fear.

The role of quantitative traders in the FX market is becoming ever more significant, as the amount of business executed via algorithms continues to increase.

The amount of dry powder that private equity firms now have means they are sometimes putting even more than 50% equity into deals – it’s a huge cushion that is contributing to reckless lending behaviour in the debt markets. But are lenders taking too much comfort from a buffer that could rapidly disappear?

Long years of losses and scandals, and now new regulation, spell a break-up with European banks’ bedrock of support in their retail investors, who have often been their own clients. Read on for a guide to Dominic O’Neill’s story on their split and the deep implications for Europe’s financial sector.

Scandals and losses are ending the co-dependency between European banks and retail shareholders, highlighting the conflict of interest in relying on depositors for capital – and showing up a barrier to Europe’s new bail-in framework. A less parochial, more austere but more accountable era is just beginning.

A string of jumbo strategic corporate deals made 2018 one of the busiest years ever in M&A, but falling equity markets, slowing economies, rising debt costs and geopolitical uncertainties have now dimmed the outlook severely. M&A bankers hope that private equity buyers, with $1 trillion of equity to put to work, will pick up the baton and that activist investors will stop corporate executives from quietly jamming those takeover and disposal plans back into the freezer.

Jon ‘Mystic Mac’ Macaskill looks ahead at possible highlights for markets in 2019.

A new, unique end-to-end transaction reference is a big step forward in tracking cross-border payments, identifying hidden costs and improving payment speeds.

UniCredit's CEO puts his money where his mouth is.

Sweden’s Handelsbanken was the perfect antidote to investors burned by the pre-2008 bubble, but investors are no longer so enamoured of its consistent strategy.

Under-investment in post-trade infrastructure is driving interest in distributed ledger technology as a means of reducing back-office costs.

The Italian bank has bought some time with the ECB, but what it really needs is a white knight.

Mettle starts digital-bank spawn from leading UK lenders; new IT system to enable more user-friendly design.

Investors worry that volatility in Italian government bond prices may leave some Italian banks needing to raise capital just as the markets close to them.

Large numbers of domestic retail shareholders mean that public ill-will in Spain hurts Santander and BBVA just as much as other more domestic-focused lenders.

It is one thing to develop alternative benchmarks to Libor, but, even as the clock is ticking, it is quite another to get issuers to use them.

A combination of regulatory requirements and commercial imperatives are driving interest in quality execution analysis (QEA), a subset of transaction cost analysis (TCA) that is a vital component in measuring FX best execution.

Credit Suisse’s CEO says his firm stands out in Europe: the numbers suggest he’s right

Founders claim existing meat-production business model at risk from stranded assets as interest in meat-free diet grows.

Roll-up acquisitions help to floor high-yield fundraising.

The recent decision to keep a mortgage-tax burden on clients rather than banks hasn’t improved the longer-term regulatory environment for Spanish lenders – or their own image.

The distinction between retail and institutional FX business is well established, but there is a growing sense that both types of client can be supported on the same platform.

Forget raising money by selling your crypto tokens, just give them away to as many potential users as possible and raise value through network effects is the new thinking from crypto-land.

Stress test results are meant to reassure on bank resilience, but they no longer seem to address banks’ key risks.

More than six months after the updated directive was implemented, its effects on research provision are becoming clearer. The good news is that buy-side research budgets seem to have stabilized; the bad news is that if you aren’t big, you probably aren’t on the receiving end of them.