In the coming decades, commercial banks will face substantial challenges from the greying of societies around the world. These will range from a declining demand for credit in the economy and a shrinking stream of regular payroll deposits to tougher competition.

Germany’s rejection of parties opposed to closer eurozone integration is a win for Europe. But the optimists must not get carried away, says Peter Bofinger, a long-time adviser to the German Government.

As worldwide consumption of mobile data and e-commerce services continues to grow exponentially, the payments landscape is being transformed by electronic and mobile payments. In particular, mobile offers huge opportunities. Understanding of this fast-moving market is critical, but it is being hampered by a lack of accurate market data.

The sharp depreciation of Indonesia’s currency risks plunging the country into a balance-of-payments crisis because any competitive edge afforded by the weak rupiah is being sapped by high inflation, without more aggressive monetary action, say analysts.

The European Commission’s latest draft legislation proposal governing financial market benchmarks, released on September 18, reveals that lawmakers have dropped some of the more onerous regulatory requirements that were causing market participants concern over the summer.

Corporate treasurers are riding out the volatility buffeting emerging market (EM) currencies, employing a variety of strategies to mitigate exchange rate risk, from forward contracts to natural hedges, such as operating in local currency.

Moody’s has upped its game by disseminating more detail on how it measures sovereign bond default risk. However, like previous attempts to refine and improve its market signalling, this latest announcement still raises several questions about the usefulness of its ratings.

More flexible payments for companies risk damaging the plumbing through which money flows and draining market liquidity. Financial institutions and regulators are therefore firmly focused on tightening up liquidity management to ensure that doesn’t happen.

The divide between rich and poor has widened across the globe since the 1960s. But shifting demographics could start to redress some of the balance towards ordinary workers.

The regulatory push for change presents businesses and banks with opportunities as well as challenges. Here’s a run-down of just some of the positive impacts of Basel III, FATCA, SEPA, Dodd Frank, the revised Payment Services Directive, and intraday liquidity requirements.

The strong appetite for floating rate bonds might be tested by volatility, triggered by the Fed’s decision to delay tapering, but for now demand for investment-grade floaters, in particular, is red-hot, leaving bankers and investors to ask how long the rally can last.

Derivatives traded on Asia’s exchanges are staging a recovery, with equity index futures leading the way – despite a looming threat from global regulation aimed at taming a sector widely blamed for the financial crisis.

Investors may have been too quick to jettison Asian assets during their recent pullback from emerging markets. While some economies – including India and Indonesia – have proved vulnerable to fears of scarcer global liquidity, Asia’s emerging economies still boast stronger macro fundamentals and are better prepared for capital outflows than during earlier crises.

Corporate treasurers are increasingly focused on managing working capital better when buying and selling – and many now realise that supply chain finance (SCF) can help. By breaking down the silos between the purchasing, selling and treasury functions of a business, SCF can ensure good risk management, boost liquidity and improve the balance sheet.

Discord exists among corporates, banks and regulators over the approach to bringing payments into global harmony.

As the European Commission (EC) moves forward with its first regulatory engagement with the shadow banking sector, policy experts argue that more work needs to be done to understand the relationship between banks and non-banks, and the ways in which shadow lenders – previously beyond the regulatory perimeter – contribute to the financial infrastructure as a whole.

European regulators are beginning to get to grips with previously hidden quarters of the shadow banking system with a series of proposals to regulate money market funds (MMFs).

Strip out the mega Verizon-Vodafone deal and European M&A activity year-to-date is at its lowest level since 2009. Hopes are, nevertheless, growing that an improvement in the economic climate and corporate risk-taking will boost deal-making.

India’s economy and currency has taken a battering, yet the worst of rupee depreciation should now be behind us. Stability should return, though a more meaningful appreciation of the rupee is still some distance away, writes Sanjay Mathur, Managing Director and Head of Economics Research, Asia Pacific ex-Japan at RBS.

Emerging market (EM) currencies are expected to continue to expand their share of the $5.3 trillion-a-day global forex market despite the turmoil, with China’s RMB leading the charge.

Regulators want to shift the risks of such trading away from banks and towards financial institutions and are also pushing for more trades to be cleared centrally, writes Graham Shuttlewood, product manager at RBS.

Concerns are mounting about the risks to India’s financial health posed by a growing shadow banking sector that has helped fund a decade-long investment-fuelled consumption and investment boom.

September tapering by the US Fed, which until recently markets took as given, is looking less certain as downside risk factors for winding down the central bank’s $85 billion-a-month stimulus programme continue to mount.

Capital-hungry borrowers seeking to plug the huge infrastructure deficit in Latin America’s largest economy through international capital markets are hoping Eike Batista’s OGX group will avoid default.

UK corporates that use cheap debt to fill the gaps in their pension funds could enjoy significant strategic, cash flow and accounting benefits. James Courtenay-Evans, Managing Director, and Shoaib Yaqub, Associate Director, Corporate Financing Solutions at RBS, explain.

Brazil’s recovery is being cut off at the knees by a set of economic challenges that have all come home to roost – from a depreciating currency and rising current-account deficit to structural problems, including an overdependence on credit-fuelled consumption.

A look at the latest Risk Management practices to help corporate treasurers.

The tapering-inspired exodus of capital from fixed income and equity markets has forced down emerging market currency yields, killing the high-yield trade and leading to a massive unwind of currency positions, according to currency traders on both sides of the Atlantic.

Recent market volatility and the associated disappearance of FX liquidity, from hedge fund-backed algos, underscore the proliferation of new trading venues, the complexity of electronic FX trading and fears among end-users that many liquidity providers do not have their best interests at heart.

Just months into the recovery in the UK housing market, prices are beginning to look stretched as loose monetary policy and government aid to buyers drives the gap between valuations and incomes ever wider, according to analysts. Are the seeds being sown for a horrible correction in 2015?