February 2010
Cover image
FEATURES
-
Private banking: Asian clients return to risk cautiously
Eager to move out of the low-yielding cash they sheltered in during the crisis, clients of Asia’s private banks are moving to riskier assets, with a renewed interest in diversification. Will that also mean diversifying their choice of banks? Lawrence White reports. -
Foreign exchange debate: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
In all the talk of regulation, the distinction between settlement risk and counterparty risk seems to have been blurred. The FX market survived the crisis best. -
Private banking: Deutsche lays out big ambitions
The acquisition of Sal Oppenheim accelerates Deutsche Bank’s ambitious private banking growth strategy. Peter Lee reports. -
Cash management debate: Difficult choices for corporates
Turmoil in banking has changed transaction services. Just as it has become crucial to extract every last efficiency from treasury, clients face new choices and new uncertainties. How should they choose their banks? How can they manage their risks? What should their treasury look like? -
Private banking: Switzerland fights back in tax war
Offshore banking centres and the code of secrecy are under attack by governments hungry for tax revenues. But Switzerland’s private banks are adapting fast, and finding strength in openness and innovation. Helen Avery reports. -
France’s private banks widen their nets
Private banks draw on their groups’ retail base, while there has been a revival in appetite for structured products. Helen Avery reports. -
Latin American private banking: Advisers sceptical of highs
Brazilian equities proved irresistible to investors in 2009, but private bankers are looking elsewhere for returns amid fears that the love affair might not last another year. Chloe Hayward reports. -
SEPA migration: A lame duck struggles to make common sense
After hundreds of millions of euros of investment, banks are finding that the EU’s single payments area (SEPA) is not the promised land. Early adopters think the blame lies with politicians and want them to save Sepa by forcing through migration. Laurence Neville reports on a flawed but not failed initiative. -
Private Banking and Wealth Management Survey 2010: The old order changes
The financial crisis and its reverberations have been felt dramatically across the private banking industry. The status quo has been altered and new leaders have emerged, as the Euromoney 2010 private banking poll reveals. Helen Avery reports. -
Deals of the Year 2009: An instructive year
It was meant to be another year of difficulty and potential disaster. But 2009 provided much more than even the arch-optimist could have expected. -
Wealth management: The richest go for JPMorgan
With a long-standing reputation for stability and sound advice, JPMorgan was ideally placed to profit from wealthy investors’ mistrust of other managers during last year’s market mayhem. Doug Wurth, head of its international private bank, tells Helen Avery how his division kept its cool and its clients during the crisis.
OPINION
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
-
The sale by the state-owned Financial Institutions Development Fund (FIDF) of a 47.58% stake in Siam City Bank is the last opportunity for a foreign bank to enter the Thai market, given the government’s declaration that new licences are unlikely to be granted in the short term. The deal is also perhaps in another way the last opportunity for the bidders involved. With war chests of acquisition capital at the ready and managements eager to capitalize on the financial crisis to snap up opportunities, both Korea Development Bank (KDB) and HSBC have been looking to buy in Asia – with limited success so far.
-
Standard Bank has hired Celal Çelikcan as managing director, Turkey. Çelikcan was previously a principal trader at Citi in London, although he was at one time the bank’s treasurer in Istanbul.
-
Newedge, the global exchange-traded products clearer and broker, has become the first foreign company to be granted a full futures licence by the Korea Financial Services Commission. The company is now able to offer all products listed on the Korea Exchange (KRX), which includes currency products.
-
Record number of funds seek cash; Debt appetite returns