Euromoney magazine celebrated the 40th anniversary of its FX survey on the evening of May 30 at The Victorian Bath House in Bishopsgate, London.

What a month for the cryptomaniac in us all.

The forthcoming IPO of Xiaomi Corporation – China’s Apple, if you must – is the talk of Hong Kong because it is the first dual-class listing to be allowed on the city’s exchange, but it also serves as a reminder of the inherent ludicrousness of the draft prospectus.

June 2018

June 2018

Product diversification high on agenda; bank fund relationships could change.

As they rapidly lose market share, investment banks must evolve their capital markets businesses.

Will Romania go the way of Hungary when it comes to the independence of its monetary authority?

For the moment, Africa looks to be a step too far.

To expect impact investment to be of greater size now than it is would be to miss the point of it altogether.

Managed marine protected areas are an effective tool in coastal ocean conservation. They are also ripe to be included in investment structures. The upsides for everyone may help push the protected area of the world’s seas from 2% to 30% by 2030.

In April Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte took a characteristically drastic step. He closed Boracay. It is an indication of the environmental threat from marine pollution. Can the private sector help clean up the seas?

Private-sector investors are taking their first tentative steps into sustainable fisheries projects. Alignment of interests and investment returns look good on paper, but there are many practical issues that need to be addressed before radical transformation can occur.

Goldman Sachs delivered strong first-quarter trading results that were followed by a reorganization of the management of its securities division.

The coming move towards a Volcker Rule 2.0 that relaxes monitoring of proprietary risk taking by bank dealing desks has been portrayed as a result of president Donald Trump’s administration finally placing its preferred officials in key regulatory positions.

AT1 contingent capital bonds are entering their second generation; issuers have begun refinancing the $200 billion asset class, but just two years ago the market looked close to collapse. What took it to near disaster? And how did it escape?

With a spike in volatility and the opportunity to consign conduct issues to the past, this might have been a turning point for global FX, but faced with a range of challenges, many market makers are retreating to core competencies.

…if you’re big, fast or specialized in modern foreign exchange. That has led to dramatic changes in the volume-based rankings in our annual survey. Meanwhile, new customer satisfaction ratings give a different insight into the banks’ relationships with their clients.

Overall

Banks are having to pedal back on big ambitions and focus instead on core competencies, but that could be positive for all.

Adherence to the FX Global Code has gained momentum ahead of the one-year deadline on Friday, but senior traders are concerned the buy side is less committed than the sell side.

As international financiers rush into Saudi Arabia, they are asking if the Kingdom can deliver on its grand promises.

As cities around the US see populations increase, so the smaller banks that serve low- to moderate-income urban families are being squeezed out. New York is no exception. Financial inclusion is at risk of becoming an urban myth.

Shares worth up to €8 billion left in abandoned accounts; potential game-changer for local capital markets, says EBRD.

Despite the latest attempts to stymie them, Eurosceptic populists remain the most powerful political force in Italy – largely thanks to anger at a banking crisis, often fanned by the ECB. Now their approach to power is killing the last chance of fixing the banking union, and possibly the euro.

SBI head outlines path to asset resolution; says sector still shocked by PNB fraud.

Bracher admits “severe pressure” to reduce spreads; credit portfolios tilting to SME and consumer segments.

Distributed ledger technology could be answer to GDPR for banks worried their legacy systems will struggle to cope with customer rights over their records.

A soybean trade between two arms of Cargill using letters of credit from HSBC and ING shows the R3 Corda platform is finally set to scale up.

Listing is a great result, but the rule change it required dilutes good governance.