Non-bank lenders are offering growing volumes of embedded finance both wholesale to merchants selling on e-commerce marketplaces and to their retail customers.

In his first year as chief executive, Andrea Orcel has backed out of a deal to buy Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena and prioritized capital distributions at UniCredit. However, his flirtation with an acquisition in Russia has shown that the bank can still raise eyebrows. Orcel talks to Euromoney about the bank’s biggest opportunities and how M&A can help realize them.

Citi’s decision to withdraw from consumer banking in Mexico demonstrates the extent to which fintech players have transformed this market. How prepared are the other incumbents to take on the competition?

Analysts see augmented reality creating new economies worth trillions of dollars in the metaverse, where people are already spending real money on virtual real estate and will want to spend virtual earnings in the real world.

Early in the Covid crisis, CACIB avoided the big equity derivatives losses its local rivals suffered. Chief executive Jacques Ripoll tells Euromoney how the bank plans to take advantage of the rise of sustainable finance, which plays to its long-standing expertise in infrastructure and energy.

The scrutiny of sustainable finance is expected to intensify over the year as stakeholders look for market participants to deliver on environmental promises.

As legacy banks plough billions into fintech, their valuations – especially compared to standalone fintech players – are far from seeing the desired benefit. Spin-offs and subsidiary IPOs are part of a growing push to make these fintech investments more independent and visible, and to force a sum-of-parts valuation. Is the answer to restructure into a listed financial holding company, of which the legacy bank would just be one part?

Covid barely dented the strength of the banking system and most banks have been steadily releasing the provisions they took. Euromoney talks to the leaders of our 25 reviewed banks and others about the challenges they face as the world normalizes.

It is more important than ever that banks get China right. Senior executives from the Euromoney 25 discuss what to expect in 2022 as the world’s second-largest economy enters a period of more stable growth.

A longstanding pioneer in illiquid and private assets, Australia’s Future Fund has found itself well placed for an uncertain and yieldless world. It got here by being able to adapt to changing conditions and CIO Sue Brake knows there is plenty more of that to come.

Global supply-chain bottlenecks have profound implications for how and where companies will fund their operations in the future. As the lines of ships lengthen outside ports, there’s a macroeconomic cost for banks weighing on loan demand and perhaps asset quality. However, some trade and logistics financing businesses that were previously on the margins of banking are now seizing their moment.

The tie up between Masraf Al Rayan and Al Khalij Commercial Bank could be the first of many as cost cutting and profitability top the banking agenda.

The transition of most of the global financial markets away from Libor and the adoption of risk-free rates is finally upon us. As the clock counts down to the demise of Libor for all new contracts, the focus is firmly on where the sticking points remain: the ‘tough legacy contracts’ and the US dollar loan market.

The whole world must deal with Libor transition, but the situation is especially complex in Asia. Each jurisdiction has a different approach to benchmarks, and several countries are going to end up with multiple rates. On top of that there are big questions about liquidity. So, is Asia ready?

The Peronist playbook is back in force: Argentina’s monetization of fiscal deficits relies on the banking system buying central bank and government securities. This time around the movie has a new subplot: credit growth in both the corporate and retail sectors is increasingly taking place outside the traditional banking sector.

Ahmed Abdelaal is the first non-Ghurair family member to lead Mashreq Bank. His first two Covid-marred years in charge as chief executive were a baptism of fire, but he has hired well and decisively, putting in place a cosmopolitan management team that is transforming the Dubai-based lender.

Central banks have dominated financial markets through years of interest-rate repression that inflated bond and equity valuations. Suddenly inflation, running at highs not seen for decades, threatens all this. Do central banks have the credibility and capacity to cope with the monster from the 1970s that has returned with a vengeance?

Earlier this year HSBC chief executive Noel Quinn pledged $6 billion of investment in Asia – half of it outside Greater China. Having recognized he can do so much more in southeast Asia and India, how will he achieve this?

Covid left Asia’s big markets closed to business travel, yet M&A is surging, with Australia and southeast Asia at the forefront of activity. China, where the focus is on local investments, is, however, bucking the trend.

China’s president is a modern-day emperor who rules with an iron fist. His ‘common prosperity’ push promises better jobs and more equality, but it’s causing analysts to ask if the market is no longer investible and investors to fret and pull back – at a time when the country needs foreign capital more than ever.

Nazir Razak, who built CIMB from an obscure Malaysian merchant bank to a pan-regional universal player, is the youngest of five brothers. The eldest, Najib, was the prime minister who was convicted for his role in the 1MDB scandal. That pitted the two against one another. In the background of the brothers’ opposition was the legacy of their father.

The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) is one of the most closely watched developments in climate standards to have been announced at COP26. Although its launch was the culmination of an ambitious project, its work is only just beginning.

This year’s cash management survey sees banks looking beyond purely pandemic-related challenges to focus on sustainable finance and investment in technology.

Ricardo Lacerda launched a boutique investment bank in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Having finally succeeded in IPOing his firm at the third attempt, he now looks to navigate it through Brazil’s turbulent waters.

JPMorgan Chase can be a winner in global digital retail banking according to Sanoke Viswanathan, the bank’s head of international consumer growth. With European expansion starting in the UK under the Chase brand and growth in Latin America through a stake in Brazil’s C6, Viswanathan insists his firm is in this for the long haul.

Investors fear that many Asian governments aren’t doing enough to transition to net zero. They are therefore engaging with the region’s largest utilities hoping for better results. CLP may be an example for others to follow.

There has always been great overlap between Shariah-compliant finance and ESG principles. Malaysia is trying to harness the potential that arises from this confluence.

President Xi Jinping has set out ambitious plans to decarbonize China’s economy. But most companies and banks, hampered by a lack of top-down regulation, have little idea what ESG is, let alone how to measure and report it. It is a mess – and one that China needs to clear up fast.

Supervisors attending this year’s meeting of the Institute of International Finance were at pains to show they would not be rushing to impose capital penalties on banks based on climate stress tests. But the issue is at the heart of a debate over what the limits to regulatory scope should be.

Asian high yield has always been dominated by Chinese real estate, so the Evergrande crisis has shut down the market for new issuance. Is this the chance for non-Chinese issuers to step up?