The 28th Conference of the Parties starts in Dubai tomorrow. Dubbed the finance COP, conflicting priorities could turn it into a fossil fuel investor roadshow.

Kenyan authorities have cleared Flutterwave of wrongdoing following an anti-money-laundering case in the East African nation. Nevertheless, industry confidence in the Africa-focused payments company remains mixed.

While the dollar’s international supremacy is unchallenged for now, the wider landscape is shifting. Companies are raising more funding in renminbi and the currency’s use in international payments and settlements is growing.

When Kevin Gartside was medically discharged from the British army in 2012 after three tours of duty in Iraq, he was unsure what to do next. He saw cross-over appeal in banking, an industry with a surprisingly flat operating structure that prizes punctuality, teamwork, adaptability and decision making.

Standard Chartered’s corporate and institutional bank can increase its profitability even when rates fall, divisional head Simon Cooper tells Euromoney. After reaping the benefit of investments in cash management, he is now turning to the financial markets business, especially credit – reinforcing efforts to grow clients in Europe and the Americas.

Jane Fraser, chief executive of Citi since March 2021, has a mighty task on her hands. Like so many of her predecessors, she faces the puzzle of how to articulate an identity for a bank that always seems to be trying to do too much at once. So far, she has focused on redefining the scope of the firm and most recently on adapting its structure to fit that. The hardest part – fixing the bank’s woeful returns – is still to come.

The war in Ukraine has suddenly ramped up demands on the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development after the institution spent years searching for a new role. President Odile Renaud-Basso talks to Euromoney about the bank’s strategy and plans to boost its capacity through a €4 billion capital increase.

Data hoarding, ESG illiteracy and credit risk are roadblocks for regional banks looking to establish sustainable supply-chain financing programmes in the Gulf, just as COP28 approaches.

Mongolia’s five big lenders have successfully completed their IPOs, doubling the size of the local stock market. But the challenge of attracting more foreign institutional investment remains.

Private banking clients have begun exploring alternative asset allocation strategies in Brazil. Euromoney talks to the founders of a startup that is tapping into this demand with a strategy focused on special situations.

Singapore’s big-three lenders – UOB, DBS and OCBC – have won Euromoney awards for best SME bank in Asia each year since 2016, two of them taking the global award as well. Why?

New technology ventures and trading platforms promise compressed settlement times and improved liquidity in a secondary loans market increasingly dependent on non-bank investors.

The risk of a new war with Israel will derail any fledgling economic recovery for Lebanon as it attempts to convince private-sector investors of its gas and renewable energy potential.  

Latin America has been a relative backwater for private equity firms. Could better equity market conditions in the region drive an uptick in activity?

While banks have accelerated digital solutions across business lines, accomplishing end-to-end digitalization of global trade remains far beyond their reach. The complexity of supply-chain finance remains a challenge, and banks continue to hunt for scalable solutions. Embedded finance could be the answer.

In one of his last interviews in office, Ignazio Visco sets the record straight on his controversial 12 years as Italy’s central bank governor: a period of almost constant crisis. Today, the country’s NPL problems seem cured but, as he acknowledges, simmering risks remain.

Latin American issuance was solid, if unspectacular in the first half of this year. However, with politics, sticker price resistance and refinancing needs skewed to 2024, the next half may be more difficult.

A market-beating increase in UniCredit’s share price is just the beginning, chief executive Andrea Orcel tells Euromoney. He must now prove the many remaining sceptics wrong and show the bank can still thrive when net interest margins fall and credit costs rise.

The relaxation of visa rules has turbocharged the recent flow of wealth into Dubai. The nature of these flows can, however, make them a mixed opportunity for the UAE’s private bankers.

Real estate has been particularly exposed to the slowdown in bank lending. Nevertheless, logistics remains a bright spot as retail sites continue to adapt and office oversupply persists.

Private foundations were once the preserve of a narrow group of the monied elite. Today, they are the fastest-growing source of private-sector philanthropy in the US and across the developed world.

Despite a year of high-profile issuance, all is not well in the sustainability-linked bond market. Teething problems could soon become an existential crisis, raising the risk that investors might decide to abandon the asset class altogether.

Social bonds could help deliver the UN Sustainable Development Goals by driving private capital into essential services. But impact looks different from one place to the next, so how can issuers report it in a way that makes sense?

Borrowers that financed cheaply in 2021 will soon hit a maturity wall. Many will struggle to refinance at higher cost. Some will default. Private credit managers – still magnets for institutional capital – are set to step in and bridge some of the financing gap left by the banks.

Financial market practitioners might be forgiven for reflecting on a job well done now that the final Libor panel has ended its submissions. The journey has been immense, but the focus is turning to loose ends, including the argument that just won’t go away: is there a place for credit-sensitive rates in a post-Libor world?

For decades, transaction banking was a profitable but largely ignored corner of the banking industry. Then Covid happened. Today, bank chiefs see it as critical to everything they do. Given the challenges ahead – collaborating with fintechs and embedding ESG principles in global supply chains – the revolution under way in this business is unstoppable.

After years of easy Eurobond access and ramped-up Chinese lending, developing economies are now caught between rising interest rates and geopolitical tensions, making debt restructurings more numerous and more complicated. Despite some progress in inter-creditor talks, many debtor nations face an uncertain financial future.

Outbound Chinese M&A deal-flow has slowed to a crawl even as inbound activity remains steady. So focus in the region is moving elsewhere: to rising India, steady-and-lucrative Australia and even Japan, where once-bloated conglomerates are streamlining portfolios under intense pressure from activist shareholders.

Despite its roots in the region, HSBC’s Asian woes have sometimes seemed endemic. It has been overly dependent on Hong Kong and too often caught in Sino-US crosshairs. But under regional co-CEOs Surendra Rosha and David Liao, the lender has regained its confidence, is more regionally diverse than ever, and is busy posting record profits.

The investment firm founded by securitization experts in 2015 has grown to an $8 billion portfolio of 60 companies without managing any third-party funds and still sees big potential returns, notably in football clubs, from applying the discipline of structured finance to operating businesses.