Governance, Regulation & Compliance

Global Finance sat down with Murat Doğan Erden, Turkcell Group’s chief financial officer, to discuss the economic and business outlook for Turkey and the challenges confronting Turkish corporates.

United States | Newsmakers
After the Republican victory in the 2014 US midterm elections and an eight-year hiatus, Richard Shelby, a senior senator from Alabama, has taken over his old post as chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.

Regulation | Management
In October the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project released a report outlining its progress on a series of steps it was taking to combat tactics—often legal but ethically questionable—used by many multinational companies to reduce or eliminate tax liabilities across their operations. 

Special Report | Global Transaction Banking 2015 Preview
Last year brought a vastly altered landscape for transaction banking—and the same is likely to be true of 2015. Regulatory reform and new developments in data analytics and mobile banking will drive change.

Activist Investing | Trends
Vanguard CEO William McNabb is making it plain that he wants the many public companies in which the world’s second-largest fund management firm owns significant minority stakes to take Vanguard as seriously as they take activist investors.

Regulatory uncertainty, technological change and traders behaving badly have collided in a perfect storm for banks’ foreign exchange operations

Proxy Voting | Management
Proxy advisory firm ISS updated its proxy voting guidelines last fall to introduce a more detailed approach to the recommendations it makes on companies’ equity plans and shareholder proposals for an independent chairman. The changes could create uncertainty for companies during this year’s proxy season.

UK Corporate Tax | Trends
Britain likely will succeed in taxing multinational companies at a 25% rate on their UK operations beginning in April, without violating international tax treaties, analysts say, but tensions are rising between countries on suspicions that MNCs are engaging in global tax evasion.

European Banking | Trends
The degree to which the recent stress tests of big European banks by EU regulators lack credibility is becoming clear.
 

Website design is becoming more important than ever, particularly in areas such as ease of use, security features, integrated functions and aesthetics.
 

US & China | Milestones
“This is a major milestone in the US-China relationship, and it shows what’s possible when we work together on an urgent global challenge.”

China | Milestones
China will allow foreign firms to increase their ownership stakes in encouraged sectors and enter into previously protected industries, according to investment guidelines drafted by the National Development and Reform Commission.

Global Finance held its 18th Annual Best Banks Awards ceremony in Washington in October—during the Annual IMF/World Bank conference. Honorees from around the world were present to accept their awards.

At a roundtable in Istanbul in September, leading figures from Turkish banks, including the deputy governor of the Central Bank of Turkey, came together to discuss developments in the economy and financial sector.

Hungary | Milestones
Hungary has witnessed the biggest street protests since the current right-wing government came to power in 2010, against the government’s plans to tax Internet traffic, the world’s first such levy.

Vatican | Newsmakers
René Brülhart, known as the “James Bond of the financial world” for his high-profile role in cases such as the return of assets from Saddam Hussein to post-war Iraq and the uncovering of the Siemens bribery scandal, has become chairman of the Vatican’s anti-money-laundering unit.

 

Seeking A New Paradigm | Emerging Markets Growth
To ascertain whether emerging markets is an obsolete term, we must first understand what it means.

Middle East | Emerging Markets Regional Review
The drop in oil prices is likely to affect public spending in the rentier states of the Persian Gulf, and pressure is mounting on governments to reduce economic dependency on hydrocarbons.
 

Pakistan | Frontier Markets Focus
Pakistan’s ability to attract both foreign direct and domestic investment fell dramatically during the past decade. Some of the reasons why still apply.   

Shareholder Activism | Management
Shareholder activism—when investors in a company use their equity as a lever to pressure management—is booming and will grow dramatically on both sides of the Atlantic through mid-2016