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LATEST ARTICLES
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South Africa issued its long-awaited debut sukuk on Wednesday in a bid to diversify away from conventional means of fundraising and attract investors in growth markets in the Middle East and Asia.
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Euromoney Country RiskEuromoney Country Risk’s expert panel identifies corruption as the main political risk factor in most countries in the region, though overall economic risk has fallen since 2011.
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In our September edition, Euromoney explores the challenges and opportunities for some of the world’s leading financial institutions in the Middle East, including a special investigation into Iran’s tentative economic and political rehabilitation in the eyes of international markets, Lebanon’s economy, UAE-India ties and Saudi Arabia’s equity-market revolution.
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Sub-Saharan Africa’s capital markets continue to make up a tiny proportion of overall global investment banking activity. Investment banking fees for the region in the first eight months of the year totalled less than $200 million, a fraction of a global fee pool of close to $60 billion, according to data from Thomson Reuters.
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Incensed by their failure to reform, Brics policymakers have established a flawed rival to the World Bank and IMF. Rhetoric aside, the west dismisses emerging-market dissent over the broken financial architecture at its peril.
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Iran and the west don’t have to be friends, but there will be big benefits from a rapprochement.
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Lebanon’s economy was already under pressure before the arrival of countless refugees from Syria. The IMF has flagged up serious problems in the public finances and the country itself recognizes the need for reform in many areas. Nevertheless, a stable political base and strong banking sector offer cause for optimism
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The economic ties between the UAE and India have gone from strength to strength in recent years and are set to deepen further. The UAE not only offers India the promise of investment in its creaking infrastructure, but a compelling investment environment for Indian companies and a staging post for expansion. Conversely, Asia’s third largest economy offers Arab companies growth opportunities
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The longest-serving central bank governor in the world has seen it all, and even now is keeping the economy growing despite domestic political paralysis and the spillover from Syria.
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Waze was set up with one simple aim – to reduce every user’s drive by at least five minutes.
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One area of economic activity that does not easily fall victim to the vagaries of the domestic market is international trade, particularly between the Gulf and China. Between 2005 and 2013 the value of goods being sent between the GCC and the Middle Kingdom rose from $33.8 billion to $165.3 billion, according to the UN’s Comtrade.
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The Emirates’ economy has recovered much of the ground it lost in 2008. The country’s banks are taking advantage by growing strongly. Is there a danger of another round of overheating?
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Some banks are national powerhouses, building out across the region; others are already regional players, with individual markets creating something greater than the sum of their parts
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After the Iranian Revolution overthrew the Shah in 1979 and the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini launched the Islamic Republic that exists today, there were a lot of assets the Shah and his followers had left behind as they fled Iran.
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Few bank mergers anywhere in the world have been more ambitious than the one that created Bank Ayandeh in Iran in 2013. It combined Tat Bank with two other financial institutions and 10 credit cooperatives, and did so in a country that has absolutely no regulatory guidance for how to do it and where staff layoffs are all but taboo because of vast national unemployment.
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“What I’m trying to do,” says Parviz Aghili, “is to set up a bank that is accustomed with what is going on around the world.”
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Despite Ghana’s deteriorating economic landscape, domestic lenders, for now, remain surprisingly robust, say analysts.
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Investment banking has the potential to be big business in sub-Saharan Africa. But which banks are setting themselves up for success in the region?
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Infrastructure development and streamlined processes have helped the East African Community make great strides to become one of the most successful trading blocs in Africa. But regional inconsistencies threaten to derail further integration.
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The debut issue of a five-year $1 billion sukuk this week is a statement of intent from Hong Kong that it is serious about Islamic finance, sending a strong signal to rival financial centres.
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Banks need to keep up to date with the changing technological landscape, but with time and financial constraints, enlisting an external vendor might not be the best option.
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Qatar National Bank’s stake in Ecobank will be a boost to the pan-African lender, after being plagued by governance issues since last year, while signalling a battle for ownership.
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Issues around transparency remain as Angola’s sovereign wealth fund gears up to invest.
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Listing will inject much-needed liquidity; US banks secure key IPO lead mandates.
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With four months to go before international banks need to start reporting intraday liquidity risk, concerns are escalating that the lack of clear and emphatic guidance on the matter will lead to disparate application of the requirements and the deadline being missed.
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Banks at the forefront of pledges; attempts to deepen US-Africa trade.
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Its stock market is the biggest in the region, but impenetrable. That is about to change: the local regulator says foreigners will be allowed to invest from next year. That’s a big deal.