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LATEST ARTICLES
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Diego De Giorgi’s arrival at Standard Chartered has coincided with important changes at the bank. He talks to Euromoney about the transition from investment banker to chief financial officer, and how the firm can further leverage its advantages amid growing profitability and geopolitical risk.
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The limitations of the Alternative Investment Market are forcing many companies to explore other sources of funding. Nevertheless, there is optimism that the market for small and medium-sized growth companies can be revived.
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Does the high number of drawn-out insolvency cases in the UK suggest a failure of regulation?
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Corporate treasurers are playing it safe when balancing the merits of exploiting improved access to capital against the risk of unexpected economic shocks and business interruption.
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Financial markets reacted calmly to news of an early UK election, expecting whoever wins to stick to the fiscal rules. But whoever wins must also cope with rising debts and onerous interest payments.
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UK banks, asset managers and individuals see better returns from dumping UK stocks and investing elsewhere, but the impact eventually becomes ruinous.
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Restructuring HSBC, like painting the Forth bridge, is a never-ending job. While Noel Quinn has done well, the board must not make another ham-fisted transition.
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The two European banks are both trying to de-emphasise their investment banks and want to build up areas where they see weakness. Barclays is later to this party than Deutsche, but both will have found encouragement in the first three months of 2024.
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A private credit market growing so fast, away from the oversight of bank regulators, may be a new source of systemic risk. With smaller investors taking greater exposure to an asset class whose high returns and low losses look almost too good to be true, there could be trouble ahead.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The UK Chancellor has big plans for the tech sector.
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Thinner margins across the banking industry hit smaller banks harder. But investor pressures are also less of an issue for mutually owned lenders.
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For a deeply unpopular government with little room to manoeuvre, the chance to bribe voters with a cheap offer of bank shares is irresistible. The bank in question is now well-run and profitable while its stock still trades at a discount. But the great NatWest share offer will do little to revive UK capital markets.
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Diego De Giorgi’s arrival as Standard Chartered’s CFO coincides with a shift away from asset shrinkage and a “final push” on digital transformation.
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Even after the rally on its latest restructuring plan, investors still value the UK bank at such a wide discount to book that management must consider radical action.
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Barclays chief executive CS Venkatakrishnan intends to stop a low-returning investment bank from dragging the rest of the group down with it. He argues that most of the improvements are within the bank’s own grasp. That is debatable, and in any case hardly reassuring.
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The UK government’s impending sale to retail investors of a big stake in the bank informs the shadow-play guidance on this year’s earnings.
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It is not hard to find short-term worries over global markets’ state of readiness for the US’s transition to one-day settlement in late May. But even if the UK, Europe and those Asian markets still using two-day settlement can adapt to the shift in the longer term, they will also face intense pressure to lessen their dislocation from the US cycle by copying its move. Many also fear the ultimate end-game of same-day or even instant settlement.
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The midcap broker needs new business lines to survive a prolonged IPO drought.
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Appealing to issuers by removing investor protections makes no sense when London’s decline as a listing venue stems from domestic investors abandoning the UK market.
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The London Stock Exchange Group’s head of sustainable finance strategic initiatives wants climate data to redefine the act of indexing.
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Ambitious brokerage firms have precipitated a shift in demand for FX licences, with interest in regulated European and Asian markets on the increase at the expense of offshore jurisdictions.
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The chief executive of Newton Investment Management is a forthright believer in the power of active investors to effect change at the companies they invest in, and thinks tinkering with market rules is unlikely to boost the appeal of London-listed equities.
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Barclays hopes to win over investors with new return targets and buyback commitments next February, but it really needs a revival in investment banking.
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Regulators are starting to take a more messaging-based approach to sustainable finance, but stopping greenwashing won’t automatically lead to a transition to net zero.
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The overall use of cash will continue to fall, but the decline of bank branch networks means that businesses now face a headache in handling physical takings.
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When Kevin Gartside was medically discharged from the British army in 2012 after three tours of duty in Iraq, he was unsure what to do next. He saw cross-over appeal in banking, an industry with a surprisingly flat operating structure that prizes punctuality, teamwork, adaptability and decision making.
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Standard Chartered’s corporate and institutional bank can increase its profitability even when rates fall, divisional head Simon Cooper tells Euromoney. After reaping the benefit of investments in cash management, he is now turning to the financial markets business, especially credit – reinforcing efforts to grow clients in Europe and the Americas.
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Competition for deposits is influencing pricing decisions on commercial loans. However, the major cash-management banks insist that they have maintained both deposit levels and lending rates.
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UK banks that focus on tech are seemingly rewarded with greater customer trust.
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Corporates are taking a big punt on markets remaining relatively benign, given their apparent lack of confidence in existing FX technology and systems.
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Banks may be retreating from lending directly to small and medium-sized enterprises, but by lending to credit specialists with good technology they can still be a source of funding for the sector.
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Bidding $2.5 billion for the bulk of Credit Suisse’s sub-Saharan Africa ultra-high net-worth private bank book 18 months ago has been a ‘game changer’ for Barclays in the region, the UK bank’s Africa market head Amol Prabhu tells Euromoney.
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Even as the industry pleads its solidity, accidents keep happening.
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BlackRock joins Allfunds initiative to distribute new variants of private equity and credit funds to wealthy individuals.
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Euromoney talks to Jacques Levet, chief digital officer at BNP Paribas, about the competitive advantage that newly acquired FX fintech Kantox offers.
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Bankers at Lloyds say that progress in FX, fixed income and structured finance this year reflects chief executive Charlie Nunn’s strategy for targeted growth in corporate and institutional banking.
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Financial market practitioners might be forgiven for reflecting on a job well done now that the final Libor panel has ended its submissions. The journey has been immense, but the focus is turning to loose ends, including the argument that just won’t go away: is there a place for credit-sensitive rates in a post-Libor world?
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As other investment banks cut staff, HSBC has been hiring to build a leading bank in tech and healthcare.
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HKEx chief executive Nicolas Aguzin opened the group’s latest new office in London on Wednesday. His aim: to get more global firms to IPO in Hong Kong and convince investors to put money to work there. But against the backdrop of China’s economic situation, his team will have its work cut out.
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China is having a shocker of a year. Growth has stalled, deflation is back and global firms are moving production elsewhere as they de-risk from China to boost supply-chain resiliency. FDI is down sharply and exports are sinking. Just as Brexit reshaped the UK’s relationship with the world, has Covid done the same for China?
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The domestic economy is flatlining while interest rates continue to rise, but the booming banking sector has helped overall UK corporate payouts keep pace with those elsewhere.
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The investment firm founded by securitization experts in 2015 has grown to an $8 billion portfolio of 60 companies without managing any third-party funds and still sees big potential returns, notably in football clubs, from applying the discipline of structured finance to operating businesses.
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Thames Water has become the highest profile example of a UK corporation that finds itself hamstrung by inflation-linked bonds issued at a time when persistent high inflation and economic stagnation seemed unlikely bedfellows.
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Banks including NatWest and JPMorgan are struggling to put out reputational risk-management fires.
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The NatWest chief executive’s resignation ends a solid if unexciting three-and-a-half years at the helm.
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The increased corporate focus on environmental, social and governance issues is impacting treasury teams that can struggle to justify their initiatives.
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At €1.9 billion, international investors would happily have bought all of Europe’s biggest IPO since Porsche – even on the illiquid Bucharest stock exchange.
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High interest rates and low bank appetite for risk have created the perfect conditions for a renaissance in invoice factoring.
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Bankers are hopeful that they may soon be able to issue new AT1 deals again as the secondary market recovers from the Credit Suisse write-down.
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If the UK is to become an international crypto hub, it must focus on bringing regulatory certainty to the industry and the banks that back it.
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Pouncing on a firm with lots of corporate broking relationships at the low point for IPOs is a smart trade.
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The acquisitive fintech group reckons it can accelerate the transition from legacy FX technology by making it easier for tech firms to get their products to market.
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Proceeds raised in the first three months of this year were 99% lower than the amount raised at the start of 2021.
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The chair of Ping An Asset Management has called again for the break-up of HSBC and spin off of its Asia assets. His argument is a strong and valid one; his problem is that none of the bank’s other main shareholders seems to care.
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Standard Chartered’s new chief sustainability officer is not shying away from the reality of what the energy transition looks like in emerging markets.
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HSBC’s global head of trade finance talks about how the bank has built 'the trade finance platform for the future'.
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Solar thermal technology could offer cheap carbon-free heat for manufacturers. But tech developers are stuck in a financing gap between venture capital and project finance that will be harder to fill after recent bank failures.
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The decision by its Japanese owners to relist ARM, the UK’s great technology success story, in the US instead of London was inevitable after years of decline and the hammer blow of Brexit. Deregulation might further accelerate its collapse, even as the City wins a boost from new technology bringing the vast pool of retail money into equity capital markets.
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HSBC runs towards the storm as others are fleeing it.
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The former Barclays chief executive is set to scale up the core banking-technology provider that aims to do banking 10 times better.
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The former CEO of Cazenove has written an intriguing reflection on his 23-year career at the storied London institution. It captures his view from the heart of the turmoil, but mostly steers clear of score-settling.
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More blue blood than bad blood at former chief executive’s book launch.
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Higher interest rates will weigh heavily on the property development lending that makes up the bulk of OakNorth’s loan book. But chief executive and co-founder Rishi Khosla tells Euromoney the bank can maintain its ultra-low loan losses and keep growing.
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With the digital pound, the UK is following much of what the European Central Bank has done on the digital euro. But could the UK’s more unified banking sector foster a more revolutionary central bank digital currency?
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A month ago, First Abu Dhabi Bank said it had looked at Standard Chartered but decided against a bid. Now, it is believed to have changed its mind. What has changed?
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New platform acts as central account keeper under Luxembourg law for first ever sterling bond deal on blockchain.
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Just back from Davos, the bank’s new head of sustainable finance says the industry needs to do more, and Barclays needs to do more on transition.
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Private credit funds are committing more to specialist non-bank lenders such as iwoca, seeing big potential in small business credits, even if NPLs are set to climb.
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Strong collective-action campaigns might hurt some banks' reputations, but they will do little to convince those institutions to change their energy policies.
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Going all out to keep the sell side sweet seems a sensible strategy for success in the difficult P2P FX market.
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As Europe’s economic mood sours, a sharp rise in interest rates is putting commercial real estate through its first big cyclical turn since 2008. The non-bank sector, which has become a vital enabler of funding at higher leverage, now faces a test of its resilience.
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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.
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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.
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As a long recession looms for the UK, past successes may be a sign of future problems.
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Concerns about the wider economy and its impact on disposable income have eroded individuals’ appetite for FX trading, despite attractive levels of volatility.
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Euromoney meets Damian Payiatakis, Barclays Private Bank’s head of sustainable and impact investing, to talk about how quiet private wealth has been so far at the UN Climate Change Conference.
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NatWest digital SME bank Mettle has broken new ground in its partnership with Polish fintech firm Vodeno.
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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.
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Market experts fear that continued inflation and poor growth mean that many currencies are vulnerable to the pressure that the UK has seen recently.
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The UK’s humiliation after bond investors rejected its mini-budget and sparked a liquidity crisis threatening the country’s pension funds holds two lessons for the rest of the global financial system. First, more markets will break down thanks to rising rates. Second, the battle everywhere between central banks fighting inflation and governments seeking to sustain economies and manage the cost of vast stocks of public debt will define finance for years to come.
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The weakness of the pound and strength of the dollar has implications for companies on both sides of the Atlantic.
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Boutique investment bank DAI Magister suggests donor funds could catalyse private equity and debt investment in climate tech, the big theme of COP27.
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UK pension fund hedges have failed the first real stress test in a new era of rising interest rates. Bankers are surprisingly relaxed about the implications for other threats to global systemic stability.
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In public at least, the Bank of England has been determined to end its gilts intervention when it said it would, but it’s getting harder for the BoE to manage its conflicts – and the market doesn’t know what to believe any more.
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Regulators want to prevent greenwashing; corporates need to abide by the rules. What happens when science doesn’t help?
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With domestic retail borrowers under rising pressure, does political risk matter more than strong profitability and capital buffers at UK banks?
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While the UK government remains unwilling to make notable concessions on its economic policies, the Bank of England will struggle to restore confidence in the embattled pound.
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Clearing up after the government’s mess will only provide a short break in the repricing of UK risk.
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Kwasi Kwarteng’s debt-funded tax giveaway has re-priced UK risk at a stroke, but the high cost may bring scarce benefit.
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The recent multi-decade lows experienced by the pound and the yen may have different origins, but they are also a reminder that history has a habit of repeating itself.
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Removing UK bonus caps and undermining the BoE could exacerbate a sterling crisis while entrenching US IB dominance.
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As the world’s biggest investment banks prepare to report third-quarter earnings in October, the signals are bad across the board.
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UK regulators have pushed big banks to establish an innovative form of payment that could leave fintechs struggling.
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HSBC’s interim result shows that banks are drawing a line under pandemic-related provisions, while simultaneously setting aside new ones for the disease’s economic cure. All banks must make this transition, but HSBC has other things to worry about besides: a campaign from China’s Ping An to split the bank in half.
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UK policymakers are trapped between reducing inflation and boosting the flagging economy.
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Corporate bond deals in euros are now a rarity as issuers and investors struggle to judge the new price of credit.
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Supply-chain disruption has driven up corporate stock holdings. Firms may move excess inventory off balance sheet.
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The International Chamber of Commerce is confident the UK Centre for Digital Trade & Innovation will spur standards.
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Stress tests mean that banks must assess their own climate impact. The glaring data gaps will close as the science progresses and methodologies evolve.
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Artificial intelligence has revolutionized cash-flow forecasting at educational services provider Pearson.
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The UK Electronic Trade Documents Bill is expected to greatly improve access to trade finance, particularly for contracts that use English law.
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Payment service providers have welcomed the UK Payment Systems Regulator’s plan to promote account-to-account payments, but much needs to be done to boost take-up.
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The global cryptocurrency platform is sponsoring the relaunch of a 122-year-old live music venue in London.
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In a volatile equity market, asset managers may now pay the price for having concentrated research spend on analysts from a few bulge-bracket firms.
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The UK bank’s new fund aims to deliver metaverse-themed investment opportunities to wealthy clients in Hong Kong and Singapore.
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Banks need to be hyper-vigilant as threats grow from both malign and accidental disruption.
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How can sanctions work when banks spend billions on box-ticking compliance, but criminals still easily launder vast sums through the banking system?
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The provider of embedded banking to UK fintechs heads to Europe after its technology achieves speedy implementation of Russian sanctions screening.
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After the 2020 sale of its US bank, BBVA’s global ambitions in retail are alive and well. It has entered Brazil with digital bank Neon, ploughed more capital into UK app-based lender Atom Bank and launched in Italy in a way that presages branchless growth across the eurozone.
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The last big Wall Street broker-dealer has had a spectacular run in the last 20 years. It now wants to build ‘the best world-class global investment bank’.
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If regulated investors are to buy bonds on blockchain, incumbent infrastructure providers such as CSDs must embrace the very technology that threatens their traditional role.
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The specialist loan servicer and portfolio manager has grown fast but sees high demand from banks and investors to manage illiquid credit.
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SoftBank’s likely choice of the US to list Arm might say something about UK equity investor culture, but using it as evidence that London reform efforts are failing is a step too far.
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Brought in to help clean up Credit Suisse, the high-profile Portuguese banker has been forced to quit to preserve what is left of its reputation.
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Douglas Flint, former HSBC chair and current chairman of Abrdn, talks to Euromoney about climate change, his hope for the future and how he convinced CEO Stephen Bird to join the firm over fish and chips and a pint in an Edinburgh pub.
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Many observers remain unconvinced about the Scottish government’s official currency if the country were ever to gain independence.
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It might have the wind in its sails, but the bank will need to be nimble and smart if it is to find success in its three principle aims.
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Losing your chief executive in messy circumstances is never a good look, but Barclays does at least have momentum in its investment bank as it looks for a fresh start in 2022.
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StanChart had more to lose than most from the disruption of Covid – and more to gain as the markets where it operates recover.
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Businesses in the UK struggling under Covid-related debts are sitting on assets worth £1 trillion.
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Citi has announced a raft of EMEA region hires across Citi Global Wealth, launched in January. It’s a sign the new division is coming together.
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Questions over chief executive’s personal judgement finally end his successful stewardship of the UK lender.
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Green bonds are still a tiny percentage of total market outstandings, so maybe borrowers making net-zero pledges should tie all their liabilities to them.
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Sovereign wealth involvement in football clubs has a chequered history. Saudi’s intentions with Newcastle are clearly about more than investment, but can these deals ever work?
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Macquarie Group chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake has laid out her bank’s ambitions in green energy, as its Green Investment Group reports a record portfolio.
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The established banks have mixed feelings about the growth of buy-now-pay-later as they ponder new payment options that are undercutting lucrative credit-card transactions.
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Annual stress tests of bank balance sheets were one of the last decade’s most obvious supervisory responses to the global financial crisis. With a wave of new bottom-up assessments now getting under way, regulators hope to do something similar with climate risks. Can they do it or will this simply result in a toothless box-ticking exercise?
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The $33 billion valuation in neobank Revolut’s latest funding round puts it in the same league as lenders with trillions of assets and billions in profit.
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As Covid cases surge, the widespread hope that economic growth will contain defaults and banks will emerge unscathed looks optimistic.
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New FX platform MillTechFX reckons that rather than cannibalizing existing trading activity, it can generate new flows for its counterparty banks by undercutting standard exchange rates.
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Fintechs are caught in a brutal competitive squeeze between losses on businesses they are good at and the urgent need to offer new ones.
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The past year has shown how building a corporate and investment bank more equivalent to its standing in retail could be a vital prop to Santander’s earnings, especially in Europe. Does divisional head José Maria Linares now have the backing to match his ambitions?
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What worries the wealthy most? It is a question that provides answers the rest of us would be wise to heed.
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When Stephen Williams joined HSBC more than 20 years ago, the bank was a backmarker in Asian debt markets. When he retires next month, he leaves it top of the heap.
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We are at the peak of the hype cycle for central bank digital currencies, now being touted as one of the most fundamental innovations in the history of central banking. It is time for central banks and governments to be honest with unenthused populations. CBDC can’t deliver all the many promised improvements. As we come to design choices, there will be trade-offs. We might get improved payments but less credit. We could see greater financial inclusion but will lose privacy. Are the few benefits really worth the risk of disrupting the financial system?
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Buying robo-adviser Nutmeg is a bold and telling first step for the US bank’s new digital banking venture in the UK.
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HSBC’s new global wallet offering is the latest in a line of services enabling businesses to make and receive international payments from a single account.
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Since Jes Staley took charge of Barclays at the end of 2015, he has faced constant questions over his ability to reposition the firm as a credible force in investment banking. Sticking to his guns in the face of activist shareholder pressure, he now looks vindicated, but growing from here presents a new challenge.
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Corporate insolvencies are poised to rise sharply once pandemic-related state support is removed. In the UK, companies must familiarize themselves with new insolvency regulations as the deadline for the removal of protections looms.
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Other funds have shown how shareholder activism can work in financial stocks, especially in Europe.
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The implosion of Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management focused attention on family offices, a fast-growing, lightly regulated and ill-defined investor group. Greater oversight is surely inevitable, as is the evolution of the sector away from small, standalone entities into truly global multi-family wealth managers.
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Regulators have set high conduct standards for banks in assisting particularly smaller corporate customers with the impact of the transition away from Libor.
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Fnality applies for a DLT-based sterling payment system pointing the way to faster and more resilient decentralized financial market infrastructure.
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In just a few days, Deliveroo’s IPO went from having a book that was oversubscribed at the top of the price range to pricing at the bottom and then collapsing in the aftermarket. What went wrong and does it mean anything for other London listing candidates?
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As US Spac deals start to slow after an extraordinary first quarter, any new growth must come from outside the US
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Analysts are positive about sterling’s prospects over the next few months, figuring that monetary policy flexibility and attractive UK equity prices will outweigh any downward pressure from the European Union – whether trade or coronavirus-related.
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With monetary union off the table, a national break-up could make Brexit seem like a skirmish.
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António Horta-Osório makes no apology for the unbridled optimism that has defined his 10 years running Lloyds Banking Group. Critics say he leaves it over-exposed to Brexit and dwindling interest margins. But, as he prepares to move to Switzerland to become chairman of Credit Suisse, Horta-Osório tells Euromoney that Lloyds’ greatest days could still be ahead of it.
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The data-cloud company has laid down an intriguing marker for its peers
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Deliveroo’s pending stock sale gives London a much-needed financial boost, but the global IPO market is becoming a straight fight between China and the US.
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Jonathan Hill’s recommendations for UK listing reforms have dug deep into areas at the forefront of capital markets debate in 2021. Here we assess what he has to say.
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In making his long-awaited recommendations on how to improve London’s standing as a venue for raising capital, Jonathan Hill faced the challenge of how to reform while not racing to the bottom.
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The link between share ownership and voting rights has been weakening for a long time. With dual-class share structures more popular than ever, is the struggle to resist their rise now over?
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London is, unsurprisingly, struggling to embrace Brexit. Its advocates say the City just needs to try harder.
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The FTSE250 company launches an open pre-emptive share offer underwritten by a concert party of wealthy individuals to appease creditors in its pub securitization.
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The chief executive of a leading mid-market London broker reckons there are more funding opportunities than ever for small and medium-sized UK firms, in spite of the pandemic. But she still wants changes to London’s listing rules.
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The Bank of England’s latest FX trading survey shows how sterling trading exploded in October amid the twin pressures of Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic.
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The UK has been hit by Brexit as well as the pandemic, making for poor returns and a weaker recovery. UBS argues that this allows investors to buy while it is cheap.
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UK-based banks will continue to lose out and international banks in London will transfer more staff and capital to the EU.
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The fintech’s fast growth highlights the large banks’ inability to adapt their technology to provide basic finance to small businesses.
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Governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey rejects the unsound decisions of the EU.
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Capital is already shifting out of the UK and people will follow, leaving the big Brexit question: can the EU take advantage to complete its capital markets union?
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Asset managers and owners are scrutinizing firms’ climate commitments like never before, as HSBC is discovering.
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UK bank urged to set timeline for fossil-fuel financing phase-out.
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Every bank has had to balance Covid and geopolitics in 2020, but few have had it harder than HSBC
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The investment bank has proven its value in a tough year, but revenue stability is the challenge ahead.
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A global green recovery is still a distant ambition, but leadership across sectors is slowly coming together.
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Swift regulatory clearance raises fully fledged new bank’s hopes for smooth path to profit in an under-served market segment.
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UK regulatory proposals could mean tougher times ahead for mortgage customers, but challenger banks could get a little more competitive.
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The banking-as-a-service provider enjoys a boost as older banks accelerate digital transformation. It also harbours ambitions to become a cross-border clearing bank.
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As the second wave of the coronavirus hits, The Hut Group may win from new lockdowns after completing the biggest UK IPO in five years and largest ever for a tech company.
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There’s no point attacking banks for filing suspicious activity reports as they are required to, but they must work better together with law enforcement to fight financial crime.
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The G20 has called for renewed efforts to enhance slow and costly international payments. The founder of Worldpay and ClearBank may have the answer.
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Despite the fanfare around their announcement, many of the proposed benefits of the 'fintech bridges' or bilateral agreements the UK government has reached with regulators around the world have yet to be realized.
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Institutions don’t have to believe in any investment case for cryptocurrencies to garner returns from volatility in a growing, active, inefficient market.
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Hedge funds have profited handsomely from the boom in equity capital markets, but retail buyers haven’t been completely excluded.
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Scarred by the lockdown, suppliers now want payment upfront while customers demand extended terms: a problem is brewing in B2B payments and receivables.
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Online trade finance provider Stenn has raised several hundred million dollars during the past month and reckons it is well placed to help close the funding gap for manufacturers in developing economies.
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Virtual meetings have afforded women greater visibility during the Covid-19 crisis, but little to nothing has happened. Will things finally start to change in the financial sector?
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After a slow start, the processing of CBILS loans has picked up. Now finally accredited, the specialist SME lender says much more needs to be done.
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The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority may struggle to show anything explicitly wrong in the awarding of recent equity mandates.
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UK banks’ returns on equity will still be below pre-virus levels in 2025, while CET1 ratios across Europe could fall to 8%.
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Europe’s online-only challenger banks are still losing money, despite millions of retail clients in their home continent.
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The digital bank struggled to make an impact in a fiercely competitive field.
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Trade bodies, such as the Association of Independent Music, are taking it upon themselves to help the most affected in their industry during the coronavirus lockdown, turning to fintech solutions to do so.
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Former investment bank head Tim ‘Danger’ Throsby sadly isn’t at the firm to see the team he built deliver in a crisis.
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UK banks have faced a torrent of criticism for slow delivery of the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme, but the real problem is that the UK is providing loans that need to be repaid. Grants offered by governments such as Germany look better designed.
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The transition from Libor must be delayed to avoid pressuring coronavirus-damaged markets.
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On February 25, a rather sheepish announcement from the UK’s FCA revealed that, in response to a freedom of information request last November, it had inadvertently made underlying confidential information accessible on its website.
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HSBC launched its green deposit account in the first week of February with a deposit from a building materials company.
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Across the UK, Legal & General has invested over £22 billion in affordable housing, homes for the homeless, clean energy, life sciences, creative industries, and technology and infrastructure. Is this the institutional-scale impact model we have been waiting for?
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Dealmakers are optimistic about a pick-up in large deals and outbound M&A from Europe this year, but the need for regional consolidation is more urgent.
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Banks must prove to the increasingly impatient regulators that they have got Libor transition under control, or face costly consequences down the line.
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Returning money to shareholders was an important milestone; building revenues and controlling costs remains the key task.
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The senior management team at HSBC looks increasingly chaotic. It needs to fix that, before it can fix the bank.
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While many European peers languish, Barclays’ transatlantic pivot is paying off – and helping it build elsewhere.
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Small companies with short trading histories and thin credit files make up a growing part of the economy that established banks are not set up to serve.
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When RBS floated Citizens Financial in 2014, it was the biggest bank IPO since the financial crisis and investors were sceptical of its prospects ‒ five years on and RoE and EPS have doubled, the stock trades at a premium, and the bank has shown it can compete with bigger US banks and non-banks alike. Chief executive Bruce Van Saun discusses what comes next.
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Year after year, research highlights the gap between what impact investment consumers want and what they are being offered by advisers, banks and pension funds. The UK’s new Impact Investing Institute hopes to bring everyone to the table to change this.
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It appears that basic errors rather than deliberate attempts to game the system lay behind Citi’s large miscalculations of UK RWAs and CET1.
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The senior management team at HSBC looks increasingly chaotic. It needs to fix that, before they can fix the bank.
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Implementation of FX transaction cost analysis (TCA) appears to have stalled, with the impracticality of conducting analysis across every available venue encouraging many parties to rely on venues or dealers to measure execution, despite concerns over transparency and impartiality.
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The bank's global head of liquidity and cash management says: 'We need to stay on top of emerging trends.'
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The bank's managing director of commercialisation and propositions for global transaction banking says: 'Why shouldn’t banking be just as simple as booking a hotel or ordering a taxi?'
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The global head of transaction banking at StanChart says: 'We will see better results if we work together.'
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As entrepreneurs seek to improve institutional-grade custody and security for trading in crypto assets, conventional financial market participants remain suspicious.
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Corporates' increasing need to use treasury resources more efficiently has persuaded BNP Paribas to partner with fintech Kantox to offer a new dynamic hedging solution to clients.
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The company is expanding its UK-tested platform through an agreement with Euronext to bring the retail bid into follow-on offers from listed SMEs across Europe.
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The bid by HKEX for the London Stock Exchange is bold and has scale on its side, but faces regulatory barriers – and the fact the LSE has a different idea of what an exchange should look like.
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To date, the transformation of financial services through new technology has been a success story, but regulators are becoming more nervous.
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Legal hurdles await race for European equivalents to UK AML partnership between banks and police.
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Lower yields on 10-year US government bonds than two-year notes may presage recession and further pain for equities, credit bonds and currencies.
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Former DWS head could shake up captive fund model after Flint’s exit.
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The regulators want overnight rates to become the norm in all markets after Libor – that could be wishful thinking.
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The lifers are being cleared out at a bank traditionally known for the long service of its senior management.
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Deutsche employees who have recently been fired or face the axe will no doubt take comfort in the successes of fellow alumni such as Sajid Javid.
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The FCA’s live market test facility has enabled a variety of capital markets-related fintech companies to test their business models and technologies in a controlled environment.
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A recent survey states 92% of financial decision-makers have admitted to paying their suppliers late, but there are tech solutions to some of these issues – and it's about time they were adopted.
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The Bank of England and Federal Reserve begin to build the bulwarks against Facebook's cryptocurrency Libra.
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The field of contenders in the race to succeed Mark Carney as governor of the BoE is widening to include some unlikely names.
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Most UK SMEs applying for loans have their applications approved, raising worries that banks have loosened standards just as risk mounts.
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The recent withdrawal of Stater Global Markets from the prime-of-prime broker market has underlined the need for providers to continue to prove their value to clients.
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Benchmark reform may have received a lukewarm welcome from corporates, but treasurers would be well advised to quantify their Libor exposures to avoid nasty surprises during the transition to alternative overnight risk-free rates.
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The central bank’s new ideas for how to modernize Britain’s financial system could eat into banks’ revenues, while helping them cut costs. For the wider economy, Brexit will still smother the intended fillip to small-business exporters.
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Crossing bridges before you come to them.
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The father of international finance in the 1960s.
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Efficient banks will win the digital race.
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1985: The era when the City of London went global (from the imagination of Jon Macaskill).
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2008: While the GFC raged, Euromoney had an inside view as politicians on both sides of the Atlantic tried to save the banking system (from the imagination of Jon Macaskill).
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From the City desk of the Daily Mail to a park bench in New York, via conversations with the pioneers of the Eurobond market, Euromoney was the vision of its founder Sir Patrick Sergeant. He managed to create what is now a billion-pound business empire while reinventing financial journalism. His is a remarkable story.
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Taking blockchain proof of concepts into production is a slow process, but a new loan-servicing platform shows how banks could cut costs and improve service.
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Metro Bank’s credibility had been in question for a long time – that is what made it acutely vulnerable to online attack.
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OakNorth shows that SME lending need not be unduly risky and can be highly profitable, and other new banks are following its example.
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The news that Garth Ritchie, head of investment banking at Deutsche Bank, is being paid €250,000 a month for extra responsibility 'in connection with the implications of Brexit' has been condemned in Germany, where politicians and union leaders are preparing to oppose a potential merger with Commerzbank and associated job cuts.
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Barclays doesn’t want Tim Throsby’s exit to be about Tim Throsby, but it is.
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Automating debt and equity new issues comes a step closer with $20 million funding round for a new regulated platform.
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Back-office hubs are at greater risk than London.
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Option trading has grown, while forwards and swaps have fallen.
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A recent criminal trial in London has revealed how banking negligence enabled a multi-million dollar fraud at the now defunct oil company Afren. Read on for a guide to Olivier Holmey’s feature in the February issue of Euromoney examining the errors made and what the financial sector can learn from them.
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A string of due-diligence shortcomings enabled the international fraud that sapped investor confidence in once-booming London-listed oil firm Afren – and has also now led to jail time for its two top executives. What lessons can the banking industry learn from the failings laid bare in the court proceedings?
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The ability of AI to help retail FX brokers is quickly moving from the theoretical to the practical; the result should be better operational efficiency and better trader services.
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Branch closures in the name of digitalization, on top of wider woes in the retail sector, could exacerbate the kind of community breakdown that led to Brexit.
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Greenfield start-ups embedded within the core business might be the best way for banks to address their legacy infrastructure problem.
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Having tested HSBC FX Everywhere on internal payments, the bank now aims to provide it as a platform service to clients.
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The regulator's conclusions could be announced within the next two weeks.
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Aggressive accounting is as old as balance sheets, so why are we always surprised when inaccurate or bad-faith accounting causes companies to falter or even fail? Why is the dark side of accounting so hard to illuminate?
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After a good result in its core areas, Barclays is setting its sights firmly on a better future for its investment bank in Europe.
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The culture is changed and numbers are solid, but return on equity isn’t going to budge without progress on costs.
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New chief executive John Flint has bought himself some breathing room to deliver the bank’s return-to-growth mode
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UK corporate broking is the business that won’t die. There is no requirement for it outside the smallest listed firms, and corporates the world over manage without it. Yet UK companies almost always want the reassurance it provides. Is it finally under threat?
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European capital markets bankers’ fortunes in 2019 will turn on how quickly the withdrawal of the central bank bid can be offset by the return of a real market.
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Judge throws out claim in English court; lender on track for first full-year profit since nationalization.
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Financial Conduct Authority lady sings the blues as RBS's GRG reality revealed.
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The damage done to mid-cap equities coverage by unbundling research is ever harder to ignore. It will not be easy to lower this self-imposed barrier to improved capital-markets access for fast-growing businesses in Europe.
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The utility’s sustainability performance will partly determine the cost of servicing its new bank credit line, with any savings going to charity.
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Mettle starts digital-bank spawn from leading UK lenders; new IT system to enable more user-friendly design.
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It is one thing to develop alternative benchmarks to Libor, but, even as the clock is ticking, it is quite another to get issuers to use them.
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Roll-up acquisitions help to floor high-yield fundraising.
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Marex Spectron is making a low-key return to the FX market, just over four years after it terminated its foreign-exchange business.
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When the financial crisis hit and retail banks – desperate to cut costs – closed less profitable branches, they did so chiefly in rural towns, or low- to moderate-income (LMI) communities.
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The UK financial establishment says it can cope if the UK crashes out of the EU, but behind the scenes panic seems close.
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Investors throw money at cash-burning issuers as concern over leveraged finance grows.
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As financial fraud in the UK evolves, so too does the financial industry, stepping up its efforts to tackle the issue with new technologies, such as biometrics and artificial intelligence.
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Funding Circle demonstrates the pitfalls of IPO-ing a marketplace lender.
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The UK's financial market regulator finds firms still struggling with suspicious transaction reports, but it could be bolder in its criticism.
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Two London IPOs have struggled this week: the reasons are nothing new
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As Mifid II beds down, its impact on the global fixed income research industry is already being felt. There are clear signs that investors are less reliant on research and are using fewer providers than before. As they start to cut costs to implement their own research budgets, providers must ensure that they are getting good value for money.
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The frequency and severity of UK banks’ IT failures are troubling their customers even if their regulators remain calm.
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Clydesdale CEO downplays IT risks from further mergers and targets RBS SME scheme for 2019.
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FX data providers are surprisingly coy when it comes to discussing the extent to which they have shaken up a market that has been described as ripe for disruption.
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Without a robust mechanism for handling chargebacks, merchants will continue to face sizeable losses from both misguided and malicious fraudulent claims.
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Regulatory pressures are beginning to force firms to innovate as tech developments make it ever easier for companies to keep digital records of various transactions – and providers are taking advantage.
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Industry experts observe that while the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) represents an opportunity for corporate treasury to take advantage of real-time payment processing, it will take some time for the full benefits to be realised.
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A fintech headed by veterans of algorithmic trading in equities aims to transform unregulated gold trading as a pure agency broker.
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The UK Treasury’s inquiry into economic crime has identified fragmentation and inconsistency within the current anti-money laundering (AML) regime, while the high volume of suspicious activity reports is proving overwhelming for the regulators. But new technologies could be the light at the end of the tunnel.
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There’s a rush to find an alternative to ‘ibors’, but with just three years to go before banks might stop submitting Libor altogether, regulators and market participants are still trying to figure out the right questions to ask.
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While analysts focus on net interest margins and the turning credit cycle, there is an extraordinary risk hiding in plain sight.
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The British challenger needs to be more realistic about its future, with Brexit and other risks ahead.
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Unbundling probe will confirm Mifid II distortions.
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Recent glitches at TSB and Visa hint at the strain.
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Private equity house takes stake in UK payments processor
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UK regulator to examine regulatory impact as current research pricing viewed as unsustainable by investors.
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As treasurers and banks grapple with the arrival of real-time payments and open banking, tech companies are looking at the next phase of payment developments.
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With less than 10 months to go until the UK formally leaves the European Union, most FX venues remain content to wait for the outcome of negotiations around key issues such as financial passporting before confirming their future strategy.
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Kevin Rodgers gives his personal views on the trial and conviction of FX banker Mark Johnson and its ramifications for global markets. Anyone working in banking should consider what it means for them.
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Product diversification high on agenda; bank fund relationships could change.
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With a spike in volatility and the opportunity to consign conduct issues to the past, this might have been a turning point for global FX, but faced with a range of challenges, many market makers are retreating to core competencies.
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A soybean trade between two arms of Cargill using letters of credit from HSBC and ING shows the R3 Corda platform is finally set to scale up.
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The multiple access points for payments platforms in the UK have been brought together under one new operator
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Expectations of further M&A following CYBG’s approach to Virgin Money might be wildly optimistic.
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The challenges of regulatory compliance and cyber protection are making financial institutions think more creatively. Machine learning and greater data sharing might be the future of digital banking security.
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Banks are proving so slow to collaborate on blockchain protocols that could reduce costs in financial markets that it almost looks as if they wish to profit from persistent inefficiency.