Some issuers are grabbing the opportunities offered by a new capital markets year. Others would do well to face reality sooner rather than later.

Will 2023 be Brazil’s year – or Mexico’s?

It seems difficult to convince investors that higher bank profits are sustainable.

The billionaire Winklevoss twins and DCG CEO Barry Silbert have been squabbling over $900 million of frozen customer assets. The SEC has just banged their heads together.

Can the early volumes be sustained through the year?

Some people think that international climate conferences are nothing more than a talking shop. The Secretary General of the UN wants to change all that – with another conference.

It’s the time of year for feng shui market predictions.

The regulated US bank lost 70% of its deposits in a few weeks. But while that run shows the risks of banking the crypto industry, the key lesson is how it is still standing.

First Abu Dhabi Bank looked long and hard at Standard Chartered, and others will do the same so long as it’s cheap. But any suitor must win the approval of Temasek.

Crypto promoters now want traditional financial market regulators to save them; those regulators would rather deliver the final blow.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has lifted the lid on some eye-popping charges against the former CFO of a special purpose acquisition company.

Nearshoring has been seen to drive credit growth among the country’s smaller regional banks.

Asset managers are spooked by mandatory disclosure regulations coming into force in January. This is good news for the anti-greenwashing campaign, not so much for biodiversity lovers.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried faces the full wrath of US authorities, as rival agencies compete to make the most hyperbolic charges against the former crypto exchange head. Death by metaphor could be his provisional sentence.

AT1s rallied on news that UBS will redeem a key deal in January. But with refinancing costs higher than coupon re-sets, the pressure now passes to other big banks.

The gating of Blackstone’s $69 billion private real estate fund Breit highlights the risks in semi-liquid investment vehicles, even ones that perform strongly. Pitching US private market exposure to European and Asian retail investors may be slowed by the setback.

The death of Teh Hong Piow, the founder of Malaysia’s Public Bank, marks the end of a distinguished banking life.

The UK government has launched a sprawling range of measures to reform the country’s financial sector and markets. But the moves were mostly already under way – it is really all about the optics.

While there are some entertaining items – one country banning meat, the UK voting to UnBrexit – Saxo sees recession failing to halt inflation with the world economy on a war footing.

On December 1, EU member states agreed on a general approach for the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. The final text shields banks from their full responsibility to prevent environmental harm, thanks in part to France’s post-Brexit ambitions.

As a long recession looms for the UK, past successes may be a sign of future problems.

The climate circus has packed up and left, with everyone disappointed and no one surprised. Some thoughts from a COP first-timer.

Beijing recently ordered its state banks, including ICBC and Bank of China, to plough $162 billion worth of fresh credit into the country’s troubled property sector. In doing so, they look not proactive but panicky. A negative hit on lenders’ profits is inevitable.

China is stuck. It has spent three years trying to keep Covid at bay, but now irate citizens have spilled onto the streets, questioning the competency of president Xi Jinping, and calling for an end to restrictions – just as transmission rates spike.

Euromoney’s Mystic Maca looks into what’s in store next year and sees some big Wall Street reshuffles.

Uruguay reignites the debate on transition finance with its sovereign sustainability-linked bond.

Credit Suisse directors may sigh with relief that shareholders have approved the latest capital raise, but they are already guiding to yet another big loss.

Most governments would have been delighted to do what Iceland managed with its sale of Íslandsbanki shares earlier this year. But an audit of the deal has triggered a war of words with the body responsible for it, as well as some very odd conclusions from an Excel spreadsheet.

The market reaction to the third-quarter results from Brazil’s second-largest private bank has revealed investor sensitivity to banks’ deteriorating asset quality.

HSBC’s outgoing CFO, Ewen Stevenson, has mounted a robust case for the bank’s cost performance in an intriguing call with analysts that also featured an appearance by his replacement, Georges Elhedery. As he prepares to leave the bank, Stevenson defended his legacy by taking on the firm’s arch-critic, Ping An.