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LATEST ARTICLES
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India’s wealth-management sector is growing fast, with new advisory firms constantly springing up. This is catnip to private equity firms keen to invest in the best growth-oriented private banks. But who will win this race and who will fall short?
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UK pension schemes have made clear their opposition to reduced investors protections, while the FCA may come to regret pushing through its new listing regime.
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Citi saw impressive growth over 2023 with revenue growth of 16% year on year.
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OCBC wins the award as Singapore's best digital bank this year for enhancing its digital banking service through a series of initiatives designed to deepen engagement and improve the user experience across its platforms.
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Hana Bank accounted for 13% of system loans and 15% of system deposits in South Korea by the end of 2023. The bank enjoys a strong domestic franchise, particularly in corporate banking, which has driven a sustained improvement in profitability despite the challenging economic backdrop.
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Bank Syariah Indonesia (BSI) – established in 2021 following the merger of Bank BRI Syariah, Bank Syariah Mandiri and Bank BNI Syariah – is a leader in Indonesia’s shariah banking system. It had reached 19 million customers by May 2023, and is Indonesia's sixth-largest bank.
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For its range of initiatives and substantial investment in supporting social and environmental issues in the special administrative region, Bank of China (Hong Kong) wins the award this year.
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Citi secures the award for Korea’s best investment bank in recognition of its comprehensive range of activity across M&A advisory, debt capital markets and equity capital markets.
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In 2023, Citi saw operating revenues reach around ¥139 billion ($860 million) and total assets climb to ¥6,097 billion.
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Citi saw impressive growth across its corporate banking services in Hong Kong in 2023. It saw year-on-year growth in its loan portfolio and funded several significant environmental, social and governance (ESG) financing transactions.
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Banks are refining their single-dealer platforms to replicate the price comparison benefits of the multi-dealer model while accentuating the former’s unique features.
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Cathay United Bank improved its digital customer service last year and employed artificial intelligence and big data tools to better understand its customers’ credit metrics. This resulted in record digital growth for the bank, with digital user penetration up by nearly 50% over 2022.
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RCBC launched its new RCBC Pulz digital banking app in 2023 and continued to support for digital inclusion.
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RCBC expanded its digital offering for small and medium-sized enterprises and saw impressive growth in the segment in 2023. The SME loans portfolio grew by 16.6% to P125.3 billion ($2.15 billion) over the year.
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Newly onboarded corporate customers at HSBC grew by 21% last year. It introduced Smartserve, which reduces the number of days required to open an account, and Omni Collect, which simplifies the way businesses collect payments.
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In 2023, HSBC saw its market share of foreign investment into Malaysia reach 30% of total assets under management, making it the leading custodian and clearing bank for foreign institutional investors investing in country’s capital markets. HSBCnet Get Rate, which provides its Malaysian customers with automatic preferential FX rates, was upgraded to allow 24/7 FX booking for companies with EU and US headquarters.
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HSBC grew profit before tax by 188% in 2023 to SLR38.2 billion ($126 million).
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HSBC had a good year in India in 2023, with profits up by 19% to $1.51 billion, from $1.27 billion the previous year.
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HSBC achieved robust growth in 2023 with net profit growing 26% to total $566 million, with growth coming from its commercial, wealth and personal banking businesses.
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Throughout 2023, HSBC expanded its presence in the mainland Chinese market, strengthening its operations and advancing strategic initiatives across many sectors.
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HSBC introduced initiatives to tackle parental leave, diversity in its hiring process and to improve support for its transgender employees in Hong Kong last year.
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In 2023, HSBC further solidified its position as Hong Kong’s best bank under the leadership of Luanne Lim, HSBC Hong Kong’s chief executive. HSBC Group’s market profit before tax soared to $10.7 billion, representing 80% year-on-year growth and contributing 35.3% to the group’s overall pre-tax profit.
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HSBC helped Singaporean companies like Next Gen Foods and Multiplier Technologies expand overseas in 2023. It also scaled up its support for local businesses expansion in the region by introducing a $1 billion ASEAN (Association of southeast Asian Nations) growth fund for digital platform businesses and a $150 million venture debt offering aimed at scaling high growth companies.
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OCBC had a busy 2023, launching new FX features, application programming interface (API) integration and improvements to its online platform.
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OCBC NISP proved an invaluable partner to its small and medium-sized enterprise clients in Indonesia throughout 2023 with the launch of its Nyala Bisnis 2.0 platform and initiatives to empower women-owned SMEs.
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Bank SinoPac has long focused on initiatives to promote responsible and inclusive finance, primarily by channelling loans to small businesses. The total outstanding of such lending to small and medium-sized enterprises was NT$325 billion ($10 billion) at the end of 2023.
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First Bank of Nigeria (FirstBank) wins the best bank for corporates award this year for its investment in digital, support of sustainability and the financial performance it has delivered.
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In a tumultuous year for China’s investment banks, marked by a muted IPO market and stricter regulatory oversight, CICC has emerged as the undisputed leader. While prominent Chinese investment banks, such as Citic, have faced investigation case filings from the regulator, CICC has solidified its position at the forefront of the industry, particularly in the domestic M&A space.
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Barclays wins the award as the UK’s best investment bank. Even though some investors had to wait for the bank’s investor day in February 2024 to hear it once again reaffirm its commitment to the investment bank, staff in the UK had no doubt of this.
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The fourth-biggest bank in Portugal, which has been fully owned by Spain’s CaixaBank since the end of 2018, saw an exceptional performance in 2023. After record results for the firm across the board, Banco BPI is clear winner of the award for Portugal’s best bank.
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Techcombank further solidified its leadership in Vietnam’s banking sector in 2023. This has been driven by its five-year transformation journey focusing on investments in digital, data and talent under chief executive Jens Lottner, who took the helm in 2020.
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Yet again, DBS stands head and shoulders above the field in Asian wealth management.
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Few banks have navigated turbulent times so well, posting record revenues on the back of strong net inflows and rising markets.
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Even its rivals in Spain admit to feeling the impact last year as CaixaBank moved on from integrating Bankia to concentrating more exclusively on developing its business organically. This is evident, for example, in the savings market, where its customer funds increased by 3.1% in 2023. In insurance, a vital part of the group’s activities, there was also healthy growth, with a 7% volume growth in general and life risk premiums.
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Standard Chartered wins the award this year for making several key enhancements to its digital banking platform, supporting strong growth in customer sales and engagement.
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To be the best investment bank in the fastest growing continent you can’t just be here or there, you must be everywhere.
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Banco Angolano de Investimentos (BAI) posted impressive financial results for 2023. Profit before tax stood at AKz220 billion ($250 million), almost double its 2022 result (AKz115 billion), and the bank achieved a return on equity of 36%, up from 26% the year before.
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Crédit Agricole CIB demonstrated its global capabilities and expertise in sustainability for Hong Kong clients last year, structuring and executing several transactional firsts as well as supporting the growth and development of the broader market.
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For the second year in a row, HSBC walks away with the award for Asia’s best bank – and deservedly so. Outgoing chief executive Noel Quinn’s decisive move in early 2020 to pivot to Asia by redeploying $100 billion in risk-weighted assets has delivered, generating strong new income streams and squeezing more gains from key product lines such as wealth management and transaction banking.
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Cross-border transactions involving multiple products that combine advisory, equity and debt financing are the bread and butter of a franchise like RBC Capital Markets. The firm’s performance in 2023 makes it a worthy winner of the award for Canada’s best investment bank.
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The bank has become a global payments powerhouse, delivering innovation and outperformance.
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Afghanistan International Bank (AIB) has once again proven its resilience and adaptability in the midst of severe economic challenges, demonstrating its crucial role as a financial lifeline connecting the country with the world.
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Barclays has integrated sustainability across its operations and financing activities, significantly reducing emissions and enhancing its commitment to green investment.
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Focusing on its core strengths has helped Deutsche Bank serve corporate clients amid intense geopolitical, technological and environmental challenges.
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The French bank has made steady progress in this business over the last decade and last year was a strong period of new mandates and client expansion.
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For many US regional banks, the priority in the first part of 2023 was simply survival. But for the very best, ambitions went much further than that. For its excellent financial performance, the product of wise decisions made years ago and the continued execution of an impressive strategy, Fifth Third is the US's best super-regional bank.
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For its mix of sustainable finance structuring expertise and innovation in retail banking, ING wins the award this year.
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‘Being there’ is one of Citi’s many skills. It is always there for clients: underwriting stock offerings, printing bonds and taking the lead on bridge loans to support complex acquisitions.
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After depositors fled the wreckage of the US regional banks in 2023 and customers started jumping overboard from a sinking Credit Suisse, even more banks could have been dragged into a systemic crisis. But UBS, rebuilt after the global financial crisis as a strong, sustainable and well-managed institution, responded to the rescue call from a fellow G-Sib. It rescued Switzerland as a financial centre, stopped the panic from spreading and struck a good deal for its own shareholders. Credit Suisse was not a gift. The integration will be tough. But UBS has got off to a good start and could soon relaunch its own growth story.
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With a chief executive pushing sustainable finance from the very top, HSBC is leading from the front in the global banking industry’s response to the climate emergency.
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Public-sector clients had to tackle rising rates and geopolitical uncertainty in 2023, while undergoing fundamental restructuring in their sector. HSBC was instrumental in guiding them through the uncertainty.
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For its range and quality of corporate banking services, investment in digital, and financial performance, Kotak Mahindra Bank wins the award of India's best bank for corporates this year.
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For the volume of sustainable finance being provided to the Turkish economy, as well as innovation in sustainability products, Akbank wins the award as best bank for environmental, social and governance this year.
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International banks inevitably capture a large share of international debt issuance from Poland, notably the sovereign and large commercial banks. But Trigon remains a national success story in investment banking as a purely Polish and private-sector player. It has a large local team that includes one of the country’s most extensive equity research capabilities.
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The disconnect between global economic growth and commodity prices is focusing treasurers’ minds on hedging exposures to everything from cocoa to cobalt.
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S&P’s regional bank index has just pushed past its March 10, 2023, level, reflecting where these stocks were immediately before the collapse of SVB last year. Those stocks are rising sharply and investors are seeing huge profits, so is this a sign that regional banks have finally emerged from their crisis?
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HSBC’s choice of a new CEO to replace Noel Quinn was long flagged. Elhedery’s fortune is to be handed the reins of power in an extended period of calm for the UK lender, which benefited immensely from Quinn’s calm stoicism. But deteriorating Sino-US relations mean that turbulence for the London- and Hong Kong-listed lender is sure to return.
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The Singapore state-owned fund has unveiled plans to invest $10 billion in India and to plough more capital into the US and Japan. At the same time, it is quietly retreating from China, once its largest investment market, but now beset by underperforming capital markets, weak growth and bleak consumption data.
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President Xi Jinping’s ‘great rebalancing’ is creating a two-speed China: one a stodgy economy; the other full of export-focused corporate superstars. To serve the latter, China’s banks must invest overseas by buying assets or opening branches – and they need to do so fast.
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Tyler Dickson’s departure from Citi must rank as one of the most predictable moves in investment banking this year, even if where he has ended up is perhaps less obvious. Elsewhere, Citadel Securities is apparently set to make an offer that some of the Street might find difficult to refuse.
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Bankruptcies in the buy-now-pay-later market, together with tighter regulation, present an opportunity for banks to steal a march on pure-play providers.
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France’s political and banking troubles obscure good momentum in Societe Generale’s corporate and investment bank. Yes, capital is constrained, but the bank says it is moving in the right direction.
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The bank’s decision to sell a large minority stake in Credit Suisse’s former China JV to BSAM, a Beijing-based fund it has known for decades, is a setback for Ken Griffin’s Citadel Securities. The US firm is still committed to expanding in China’s troubled market.
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Diego De Giorgi’s arrival at Standard Chartered has coincided with important changes at the bank. He talks to Euromoney about the transition from investment banker to chief financial officer, and how the firm can further leverage its advantages amid growing profitability and geopolitical risk.
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Currency volatility benchmarking has become a useful tool for FX traders but is by no means the only option for informing trades.
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The limitations of the Alternative Investment Market are forcing many companies to explore other sources of funding. Nevertheless, there is optimism that the market for small and medium-sized growth companies can be revived.
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CEO Leandro Miranda tells Euromoney that the firm will use recently granted CVM license and secured deal mandates to raise equity.
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Basel-endgame pushback has reduced the urgency for US banks to relieve capital, but investor appetite for significant risk transfer trades is spilling over to Europe.
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Donald Trump is now likely to win the US presidential election after a disastrous debate performance by incumbent Joe Biden. Trump 2.0 may bring complications as well as benefits for Wall Street.
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Mamerto Tangonan, the deputy governor and head of the payments and currency management sector at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, tells Euromoney how southeast Asian countries are using advances in digital payments to revolutionize cross-border transactions.
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There is pressure on corporate treasurers to maximise the benefits of embedded finance, despite the lack of additional resources.
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The region’s tough economic history, coupled with its strength in soft and hard commodities, makes it best positioned to tackle today’s challenges.
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Derivatives structurers are thriving, but regulators aren’t convinced the biggest Wall Street banks have a firm grasp of their complex exposure.
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The Siena-based bank has a better bill of health and is once again a target in Italy.
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The immediate aftermath of the launch of T+1 settlement in the US on May 28 suggests the acceleration has not yet translated into increased FX risk. But it is still too early to tell what the longer-term impact will be.
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Despite an overwhelmingly Italian business in retail, Intesa Sanpaolo has stepped up its share of corporate and investment banking revenue outside the country. In its global growth markets, divisional chief Mauro Micillo says the firm is here to stay.
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With corporates taking a more holistic view of sustainability, banks are under pressure to address concerns over reporting and verification requirements for sustainable working capital, trade finance and liquidity management products.
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Risk aversion has spread quickly since the call for a snap election in France, from French government bonds, through bank stocks and CDS spreads to now derail the IPO of an Italian maker of luxury trainers.
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Euromoney recently sat down in Dubai with the heads of investment banking for HSBC in the Middle East. The conversation focused on the burgeoning trade and deal flow between the Gulf region and Asia, what investors on both sides are looking for and why they like what they see.
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The South Korean automaker is on track to raise upward of $3 billion via the listing of its India unit in Mumbai. If successful, it will surely compel more global firms to raise capital in south Asia’s largest market.
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MBridge, China’s cross-border digital currency initiative, has entered the minimum viable product stage. It is the world’s most advanced cross-border CBDC and stands on the cusp of playing a pivotal role in the de-dollarization process.
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The recent resurgence in M&A activity has driven interest in deal-contingent hedging as firms look for a buffer against unfavourable FX or interest-rate movements.
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Mexican banks have sold off hard since Claudia Sheinbaum – as widely expected – was confirmed as the country’s next president.
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It is getting tougher for investors to execute block trades of more than €2 million in Europe’s fragmented equity markets. Matching buyers and sellers needs a return to negotiation and away from pure electronic trading.
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The absence of staking and the earlier approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds have sucked much of the excitement out of the SEC’s surprising decision to greenlight spot Ethereum ETFs.
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After years of retrenchment, Commerzbank’s head of corporate clients Michael Kotzbauer tells Euromoney of a tentative return to growth. The bank has dodged Germany’s commercial real estate slump but is having to adapt to a worsening geopolitical backdrop. Capital and cost efficiency remain big priorities.
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For the US to come out in support of voluntary carbon markets even while arguing for their reform is an important step in the drive to seek better standards for what are vital – albeit flawed – mechanisms. But more guidelines on how to certify and trade offsets are no substitute for the real thing.
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Rising confidence in European banks has raised hopes of a surge in domestic M&A, perhaps laying the foundations for the long-sought ideal of genuinely pan-European firms.
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Hefty convertible bond sales by the likes of Chinese firms Lenovo and Alibaba, plus renewed interest in issuance from corporate Japan, have the market chattering. Is the market here to stay in Asia, or could a single soggy offering cause it to slam shut again?
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Does the high number of drawn-out insolvency cases in the UK suggest a failure of regulation?