A combination of geographical position and commodity strength is working in the country’s favour.

The financial frontline of Russia’s war in Ukraine runs through the offices of overworked sanctions officers at banks everywhere. It is their job to freeze the accounts and assets of sanctioned oligarchs. The pressure is colossal: get it wrong or act too slow, and the impact on a bank’s brand and bottom line will be felt for years to come.

The war in Ukraine has further highlighted the benefits of Banco Santander’s diversification across Europe and the Americas, according to executive chairman Ana Botín. However, its European home market may be a big disadvantage in Citi’s looming auction of Mexican lender Banamex.

ESG has been an intense focus for banks in recent years – not least for their communications teams. But with war in Ukraine, ESG has hit its first real test – and the talking has stopped.

Margin hikes are raising the table stakes in markets from commodities to stock loans. Margins may be a better risk signal than curiously subdued measures like the ViX index of equity volatility.

The Russia-Ukraine war is a sobering reminder for all treasurers that geopolitical risk can escalate rapidly. The importance of forward planning cannot be overstated.

How can sanctions work when banks spend billions on box-ticking compliance, but criminals still easily launder vast sums through the banking system?

The provider of embedded banking to UK fintechs heads to Europe after its technology achieves speedy implementation of Russian sanctions screening.

JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citi and Credit Suisse hope more banks will join their syndicated loans platform Versana. Greater efficiency and transparency could also attract new capital to the market.

When a group of leading banks were unable to source the roubles needed to deliver in settlement of FX swaps, compression trades saved the day. The episode serves to highlight how fragile very large, complex and interconnected financial markets have become.

What practical steps do banks have to take when a client falls foul of a sanction list?

After the 2020 sale of its US bank, BBVA’s global ambitions in retail are alive and well. It has entered Brazil with digital bank Neon, ploughed more capital into UK app-based lender Atom Bank and launched in Italy in a way that presages branchless growth across the eurozone.

Western governments need to wise up to how smart Putin and his people are at hiding and moving their money.

Despite the current financial turmoil, proponents of de-dollarization still have a mountain to climb. But blockchain and digital currencies could put their goal within eventual reach.

Where do the borders of ESG lie – now and in the future? Investors from the US to China are revisiting these questions and finding thorny and often unpalatable answers, even as they dump Russian assets for ethical reasons. The results are set to shape the financial world’s relationship with sustainability for years to come.

The early days of war in Ukraine saw the price of bitcoin rise. New technology now improves the prospect that wealth stored in crypto may be spent.

As the US takes action to tighten sanctions on Russia by banning energy imports, Europe is trying to pull together a plan to wean itself off Russian gas through greater use of LNG and renewables.

The last big Wall Street broker-dealer has had a spectacular run in the last 20 years. It now wants to build ‘the best world-class global investment bank’.

It has been a tough few years for Europe’s banks, but they finally seemed to be firmly on the road to recovery in early 2022. Then Russia invaded Ukraine. Will the financial turmoil that follows derail the sector’s hard-fought-for revival?

The prospect of China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System vying with or supplanting Swift grabbed attention in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But CIPS isn’t ready for the big time. It is too small and underdeveloped, and is a policy vehicle dominated by Beijing for the purpose of globalizing the yuan.

Western governments hope Russian citizens will blame the regime of president Vladimir Putin and seek change. That is a gamble.

In just a few years, the New Eurasian Land Bridge, which conveys rail freight between China and Europe, became a key part of Beijing’s fading Belt and Road Initiative. Thanks to sanctions levied against state operator Russian Railways, that vital trade link threatens to be disrupted – and possibly severed.

With little chance of a swift resolution to the conflict in Ukraine, the effect on FX markets is being felt well beyond the bounds of the former Soviet Union. But not all reactions have been typical for a crisis.

Oligarchs that use shell companies and fake identities may dodge the pain of Russian banks being shut out from Swift, heaping it on innocent people instead.

Several sovereign funds have either pledged to leave Russia or are considering doing so. But how will they get out? Could their exit enrich those that sanctions are intended to penalize?

ING and Intesa Sanpaolo could take bigger hits than Societe Generale in a ‘walk-away’ scenario, according to Autonomous Research.

Jane Fraser can front Citi’s investor day with good news about consumer divestments in Asia. It is hard to see a Russia sale now, though.

Exclusive: The head of Ukraine’s largest bank tells Euromoney that it is refilling ATMs and keeping branches open even as Russian attacks intensify.

The US has named Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and its chief executive in strikingly harsh language as part of its sanctions package. Is RDIF ‘a slush fund for president Vladimir Putin’ or a legitimate vehicle ‘building international relations and supporting constructive ties’?

Decades of work have been put into building Russia’s financial system. Putin’s war is destroying it overnight.