The top five global foreign exchange banks have been saying for many years that the banks ranked just outside that top tier are under pressure: they must maintain similar levels of infrastructure in terms of people and technology as the biggest players, but cannot compete on revenues in an ultra-low-margin business.

Citi reclaims top ranking in benchmark Euromoney Foreign Exchange Survey

The star performers in the Euromoney global FX survey over the past three years are clearly the big-three Australian banks. Each has been beefing up its presence in FX, and since the financial crisis they have also benefited from maintaining high ratings, which has helped them to win business from real-money clients.

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Standard Chartered has shown steady improvement in the survey over the past three years. Its market share has risen 0.31 percentage points, and its volumes by 64%, propelling the bank to 14th place overall in the global rankings.

Nadir Mahmud smiles at the irony of it. He’s been global head of Citi’s foreign exchange business for only a matter of weeks, and he’s already achieved something that has been a clear ambition of the bank for more than a decade: to reclaim its position as the leading global foreign exchange house.

High US tax rates on funds repatriated by big US multinationals are prompting them to raise debt rather than send money home

The rise in global risk witnessed in 2013 continued during the first quarter of this year as experts taking part in Euromoney’s Country Risk Survey reassessed the investment prospects of EMs versus their developed-country counterparts.

International companies are less likely to invest in India than Iran due to the seemingly more onerous regulatory and tax regime of the world’s largest democracy, according to a pulse survey conducted by Euromoney.

Treasury professionals of companies with combined annual sales of more than $250 billion have voted China, India and Russia as the worst countries to repatriate company funds from, according to Euromoney’s ‘trapped cash’ pulse survey.

Euromoney’s ninth Latin American company ranking is based on a survey of market analysts at banks and research institutes in Latin America. Respondents were asked to nominate the top-five listed companies in each of the main survey categories, bearing in mind market strength, profitability, growth potential, quality of management and earnings. Respondents were also asked to nominate the five best group treasurers, bearing in mind communication, knowledge of own business and market knowledge as well as their top-five financial exchanges in Latin America.

On Thursday evening, 300 private bankers from more than 30 countries attended the Euromoney Private Banking Awards dinner at Plaisterers' Hall in London.

Euromoney’s deals of the year for 2013 show that, despite prolonged periods of market uncertainty, smart issuers and their advisers managed to get some remarkable things done.

Higher regulatory costs and lower margins have played into the hands of the global private banks that have been able to weather the storm better than their smaller peers.