When the Philippines needed a new central bank governor earlier this year, no one expected the president to pick an outsider for the job. During his first months in office, Benjamin Diokno has promised – and started – to deliver measures to spur expansion.

After the challenges of Asian and global financial crises and the 1MDB scandal, Zeti Akhtar Aziz is back in the top echelons of Malaysian influence again. She tells Euromoney about her achievements as central bank governor – and what she knew and did about 1MDB.

HSBC retains the top spot in Euromoney’s cash management survey.

It’s not long ago that Kurdistan was on the brink of accessing the international markets. Then came ISIS, strained relations with Iraq and the challenge of being shackled to a state from which the population wants independence. Is Kurdistan ready to approach world markets again?

Stories of corporate treasury innovating to mitigate external threats.

Overview

Regulators, politicians, competition authorities and central bankers have all been outlining objections to the Libra project from the first day Facebook announced plans to let its 2.4 billion users exchange payments in a new virtual currency. Don’t be taken in. Facebook wants the burden of compliance with all those KYC, AML and CFT rules. Being able to identify what its users are paying for is a treasure trove. The banking system and the world’s central banks, as the more enlightened already see, had better gear up for new competition.

When Mauricio Macri won the last presidential election in 2015, the future for Argentina’s banks looked rosy: a spate of international debt and equity deals confirmed the optimism. No one who participated in those deals – including Galicia’s CEO Fabián Kon – thought the country would soon be back to square one.

Israel has become one of the world’s most important fintech hubs, attracting millions in investment from some of the biggest global brands and venture capital funds. Can its start-up culture now evolve to grow large fintech businesses at home?

Bradesco’s digital bank start-up has grown rapidly and is already looking to leave the bank’s existing corporate structure.

While Euromoney turns 50 this year, our first big survey was launched 40 years ago – and to this day, the FX survey remains the benchmark for the foreign exchange industry. We look back on four decades of data to analyze how the market and the competitive landscape have changed.

For now, the world’s banks are nervously watching Facebook’s move into payments, but one day they may even come to depend on it for their funding.

UOB is run by three generations of the Wee family, with a fourth in the wings. It is conservative, cautious and stable. But a bold new digital strategy seeks five million customers across the region. Is it coincidence that change is coming just as the bank’s elder statesman retires at 90?

Citi

Citi remains the name to beat in regional transaction services.

Citi has long impressed for its front-end digital excellence, with streamlined and clever apps aplenty, and for its ability to integrate itself into the lives of its customers at every level through a string of partnerships across the region.

Singapore’s banks lead the field in services for small and medium-sized enterprises that go beyond their home base into the surrounding countries: some of the very few cross-border SME businesses that can be found in the world.

Additional tier-1 (AT1) securities and contingent convertible capital instruments, known as CoCo bonds, absorb losses when the capital of the issuing financial institution falls below a supervisor-determined level. Here we explain everything you need to know about these hybrid securities, a key plank in bank-resolution plans, and implications for issuers and investors.

Investors should focus on collection and recycling to have the greatest impact in targeting plastic waste.

Euromoney welcomed senior bankers from across the world to the Euromoney Awards for Excellence dinners in 2019. View photos from our global, Middle East, and Asia awards ceremonies.

BTG Pactual

Bankers from across the Middle East gathered to attend the Euromoney Middle East Awards for Excellence dinner at Grosvenor House in Dubai on June 26.

Bankers pitching for Euromoney awards just can’t help themselves – year after year, the jargon gets more impenetrable, the league tables more inventive and the logistics more unreliable. Here’s a selection of the best, or worst, bits from 2019.

Canada’s investment banking franchises have had a challenging environment to deal with in 2018 and 2019. But RBC Capital Markets has weathered the situation well and is Canada’s best investment bank.

Retaining its title from last year, Morgan Stanley is North America’s best bank for wealth management. With $2.46 trillion under management, it is among the top three largest wealth managers in the world and sets the standard for others.

NLB Banka

This year, the region’s best investment bank is BTG Pactual. It climbed back to leadership in its domestic market and grew strongly elsewhere in the region.

Citi’s worldwide presence is proving an asset as new regional trading blocs emerge.

The firm has done well at home and in the region. Part of that is down to its ownership structure, and the rest is because growth is part of its DNA.

JPMorgan today dominates the global corporate and investment banking landscape. The key to success? A long-term strategy led by group co-president and CIB chief Daniel Pinto, and a management team that keeps the business in a constant state of reinvention.