As CEO Caffarelli targets private-sector levels of profitability, Brazil’s state-banking behemoth is aiming to improve capital and benefit from a better economy.

Boutique firm is first to win mandate; more could join, as IPO will be ‘very complex’.

It seems perverse to criticize a high-yield boom just eight weeks after it got started, but questions are arising over the fervour for new deals.

The new president of Brazil’s central bank has identified the large interest rate spread applied by banks on top of the base rate as an obstacle to economic growth. His plan to increase competition and reduce this ‘spread bancario’ is long overdue.

The country’s bankers are confident they can overcome any fall-out from their northern neighbour’s new regime. But falling consumer confidence is adding to pressure on the nation’s economy.

Five years of strong economic growth have seen Paraguay decouple from its larger, troubled neighbours. International investors have taken note. Finance minister Santiago Peña is not resting on his laurels – bond deals, PPP initiatives and pro-business policies are all in the pipeline.

Santander Brasil lost out to rivals Itaú and Bradesco as other foreign banks put their businesses on the block. It might not be a bad thing. The bank is the momentum story in a tough market. But just how far can it grow?

That is, if you are a foreign investor.

Since 1996, Turkey’s leading local investment bank has not only held its own against international competitors but maintained a dizzying pace of expansion. Now chairman and founder, Mahmut Unlu, is looking to transform the country’s private banking market.

The political class is tainted with corruption. What a time to introduce some big reforms.

Local regulation will formalize wealth management industry; Argentine tax amnesty has provided another boost to AuM.

Expected to ‘de-couple’ from weakening macro; alternative valuation highlights growth potential.

The US always looked a tough nut to crack for CLSA and it’s only getting tougher, so it’s not a shock to see the Hong Kong brokerage heading for the exit.

Whisper it quietly, but a special relationship of sorts has grown between the monetary authorities of Israel and the Palestinian territories, between whom a needs-must spirit of cooperation, engagement and mutual respect exists. Euromoney lifts the lid on technocrats managing to do business amid the noise of politics.

It started out as one of 3,000 peer-to-peer lenders in China. In six years, it has become a broad wealth management platform that may raise as much as $5 billion in an international IPO this year. The pace of its growth has been every bit as breathtaking as Tencent’s WeChat or Alibaba’s Alipay, yet few outside China have heard of it. They will. CEO Gregory Gibb tells us why.

They have out-lasted their local competitors and seen off the bulge bracket banks. Now a cohort of hardy regional investment banks across emerging Europe are preparing for a new wave of M&A and capital markets activity.

Abdul Hafiz Mansour, the head of Lebanon’s Special Investigation Commission, has a reputation as a tough adversary of financial crime. In a rare interview, he tells Euromoney why his unit is so effective, and why so much money laundering still goes unpunished.

High cost of credit in the ‘free market’ segments seen as economic impediment; president of BCB committed to lower costs and greater competition.

Country will promote the development of intra-regional trade at IDB annual meetings; Trump 'could be good' for Paraguay’s Pacific Alliance aspirations.

The country has disappointed investors by revealing undisclosed liabilities, which is underlining how African borrowers must be treated with caution.

The country’s finances are in such a parlous state that it must treat the IMF and bondholders with all due respect to get the result it needs.

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In a month that saw hundreds of thousands of women worldwide unite in disgust at the proposed policies of new US president Donald Trump, one Chinese investor has provided a shocking example of how pervasive a problem gender inequality still is in the financial markets.

When Brazilian federal police knocked on the door of André Esteves’ Rio de Janeiro home on the morning of November 25, 2015, they were not only arresting one of the country’s most prominent bankers, they were also delivering a hammer blow to his bank, BTG Pactual. There followed a stress test that would threaten the collapse of the bank. Here’s the story of how the partners forged a business model for BTG in the glare of public scrutiny.

How many firms would survive the detention of the founder, dominant partner and largest shareholder? There is a lesson for others in that.

Letshego has the ambition of becoming Africa’s leading inclusive finance group. In January, the group announced that it was continuing its continent-wide expansion with the acquisition of a small finance outlet in Ghana.

CLSA has always had a unique position in Asian finance – to its competitors it has been a curiosity, but one secretly admired for its independence. Three years after its purchase by Citic Securities, it’s now the means by which the Chinese brokerage aims to take on the world. Outspoken CEO Jonathan Slone insists the firm will flourish while keeping its identity. Can he make it happen?

When Austria’s Hypo Alpe Adria collapsed after the financial crisis, it left a network of small Balkan banks – private equity firm Advent International has taken up the challenge of turning them into a profitable franchise, rebranded, root-and-branch reformed and under new management. CEO Ulrich Kissing is open-eyed about the challenges Addiko Bank faces.

The hoped-for flows onshore from last year’s amnesty on offshore wealth have failed to materialise, so far. Meanwhile, Citi and HSBC have sold up. So where did a 15% increase in assets under management come from?

Indonesia’s reaction to a bank’s tactical call on its equity markets helps nobody, including Indonesia and its investors.