Digital negotiable instruments offer the prospect of improved working capital and better liquidity, but they face implementation challenges.

Direct lenders to risky borrowers take comfort from their seniority in the creditor hierarchy. But stressed borrowers could jeopardise this as they struggle to attract new funding.

Quarterly survey reveals that UK finance professionals may be feeling more upbeat about prospects, but that this is yet to translate into a willingness to take greater risk onto balance sheets.

UK fintechs attracted more investment than all European rivals combined in a tough funding market last year, but a broken IPO market leaves them with nowhere to go.

Previous changes of policy direction have left analysts undecided on whether to attribute recent sharp corrections to the renminbi reference rate to accident or design – or even a combination of the two.

The EU’s Instant Payments Regulation may have fired the starting gun on real-time payments in Europe, but many banks remain stuck in the blocks.

The Singapore lender is looking to India in search of new business and growth opportunities, its chief executive Piyush Gupta tells Euromoney. Long term, it aims to emulate onshore the country’s best private-sector lenders, HDFC and Kotak Mahindra.

The Chinese financial hub just posted its worst first quarter for IPO proceeds in 15 years. With China’s economy stumbling and new local security laws deterring global investors, can anything stop the rot?

As banks retreat to their home markets, they must find reliable partners to serve corporate customers overseas or risk losing them.

The challenges around distributed ledger technology implementation and integration for bond issuance have proved more significant than early proponents had hoped.

Despite overlapping in a number of key workflow areas, asset managers continue to face challenges with FX order management systems that struggle to emulate the capabilities of systems designed to manage execution.

Market conditions have heightened concerns over the potential cost of failed securities settlement as the world’s largest financial market prepares to move to T+1.

The paradox of Itaú is that it has maintained its leadership of Brazil’s banking sector with an ease and assuredness in recent years that belies the radical and continual transformation going on under the surface. The bank’s CFO, Alexsandro Broedel, tells Euromoney that its management’s only real constant is to view every new player as an existential threat – and react accordingly.

While welcome, initiatives by the government and financial sector bodies designed to make it easier for companies to raise funds in the UK face a number of obstacles.

As Japan puts an end to the global negative interest rate era, its central bank's QE programme remains in place and may be a model for peers. Investors maintain a bullish outlook on the stock market.

Carry traders are going to have to work hard to maintain the momentum of the last few months if expectations of interest rate cuts in the US and hikes in Japan come to pass.

Asset managers and industry regulators face operational challenges around the tokenization of private assets.

Caution at local commercial banks – coupled with the eagerness of large investment banks to foster relationships with private equity players – means large real-estate deals fuelled by back leverage could be primed for a comeback in Europe.

Corporates seeking to leverage sustainable investment opportunities continue to be restricted by the lack of reliable data on which to base their assessments.

The UK startup is now a fully regulated bank and private funds are backing its vision to embed regulated banking in non-financial companies as well as fintechs.

Many vendors believe corporate treasurers should be doing more to eliminate superfluous accounts, protect payment data and direct resources to improving paper-based processes.

The UBS chief investment office’s sustainable and impact investing strategist wants to avoid measurement for the sake of measurement, but responding to client demand for more data while ensuring its readability remains a challenge.

Chief executive Carlos Eduardo Guimarães says that he expects the bank’s return on equity to double to between 20% and 22% in the next two years.

Banco Inter reported return on equity of 8.5% in the fourth quarter of 2023 but is now targeting a return on equity of 30% by 2028, CFO Santiago Stel tells Euromoney.

Perception appears to be just as important as reality when it comes to buy-side firms viewing themselves as FX liquidity providers.

Leading commercial banks are focusing on their approach to relationship management to reassure corporate customers that they are being listened to.

In 2020, Deutsche Bank’s Asia chief, Alexander von zur Mühlen, placed more of his chips on fast-growing southeast Asia. As global firms diversify out of China, his prescience and willingness to deliver on his convictions is starting to pay off.

Traditional custodians are maintaining their dominance in the face of growing fintech activity in the sector.

Boosting the role of corporate treasury by enabling it to centralize group-wide FX management may sound appealing, but implementation and cost challenges should not be underestimated.

Accommodating credit markets mean that corporates are keen to get fundraising completed ahead of elections on both sides of the Atlantic.