Global news and insight for corporate financial professionals
GROWING THREAT By Valentina Pasquali The frequency and severity of cyberattacks on businesses and organizations across the world have exploded in recent years, and so have the direct and indirect costs they inflict. Global finance executives spend ...
MEETING POINT By Dan Keeler Panama is working hard to become the dominant corporate hub in Central America. With its stable and open economy and its uniquely favorable location as the bridge between North and South America, ...
LEBANON: RESTAKING ITS CLAIM AS A FINANCIAL HUB By Gordon Platt Global Finance interviews Lebanon’s central bank governor, Riad Salameh. Riad Salameh has been Lebanon’s central bank governor for the past 20 years. He is credited with ...
East Africa is a hotbed of new oil and natural gas finds. Most countries are taking a slow and measured approach to developing their resource boon, but will they avoid the resource curse that plagued many early-developers?
CHANGE IS AFOOT By Paul Mackintosh Central & Eastern European countries are trying hard to differentiate themselves from their southwestern neighbors. Corporates in the region are dealing with a new playing field as many assets once owned by ...
PROTECTING THE BALANCE SHEET By Paula Green Companies using trade credit insurance to secure their bottom lines are finding a marketplace with ample capacity, expanding terms—and even new players. Photo Credits: IGOR PLOTNIKOV / Shutterstock.com Trade credit ...
BRIGHT STARS By Thomas Clouse, Jonathan Gregson, Antonio Guerrero & Gordon Platt Following a year that included some of the biggest scandals in banking history—the London Whale, the Libor rate-fixing scandal, widespread money laundering, insider trading, rogue trading and ...
By Thomas Clouse, Jonathan Gregson, Antonio Guerrero & Gordon Platt MOBILE BANKING STIMULATES ECONOMIC GROWTH IN AFRICA Africa is one of the fastest-growing markets in the world for mobile payments. Money transfers using mobile phones will exceed $200 billion in ...
By Thomas Clouse, Jonathan Gregson, Antonio Guerrero & Gordon Platt REGIONAL ECONOMY ON SOLID GROWTH PATH Asia’s regional economy continues to grow steadily, despite the tepid recovery in the United States and sovereign debt issues in Europe. The region’s ...
By Thomas Clouse, Jonathan Gregson, Antonio Guerrero & Gordon Platt TOUGH TIMES CONTINUE IN EUROPE Europe remains mired in recession. Apart from Germany and the Nordics, major European economies are either flatlining or, as among the southern peripherals, contracting ...
By Thomas Clouse, Jonathan Gregson, Antonio Guerrero & Gordon Platt LOCAL BANKS INCREASE MARKET SHARE While European banks have dominated Latin America’s banking sector for more than a decade, their stronghold has recently weakened. Some have sold local assets ...
By Thomas Clouse, Jonathan Gregson, Antonio Guerrero & Gordon Platt CONSERVATIVE LENDING AND RECORD EARNINGS IN THE MIDDLE EAST Many of the largest banks in the Middle East posted record earnings in 2012, as they continued to pursue conservative lending ...
By Thomas Clouse, Jonathan Gregson, Antonio Guerrero & Gordon Platt RECORD EARNINGS FOR CANADIAN BANKS Canadian banks have continued to report record earnings, despite a slowdown in the Canadian economy, surprising most analysts. Plus, they have avoided many of the ...
CLIFFORD CHANCE TO OPEN SAUDI PARTNERSHIP By Gordon Platt Clifford Chance is the first global law firm to receive approval from Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry to create a Saudi-foreign legal partnership in the kingdom. Photo ...
NEW CENTRAL BANK GOVERNOR EXPECTED TO TOE THE POLITICAL LINE By Kim Iskyan The Russian economy continued to show signs of a slowdown, with GDP rising just 0.1% year-on-year in February. Weakness in household consumption growth, which ...
THE PENDULUM SWINGS By Paula Green At this month’s Salon, Global Finance sat down with Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, former chairman and CEO of AIG and current chairman and chief executive of CV Starr. Greenberg, who spent nearly four decades building ...
ENGINEERING THE NEW TURKEY By Justin Keay Major infrastructure investments and improved economic strength are just two of a number of positive developments to come out of Turkey in the past year. Ankara stunned investors in February ...
MILESTONES: RUSSIA/CYPRUS By Kim Iskyan As the Cypriot banking sector imploded in mid-March, Russia, for which Cyprus is an offshore financial services center, was expected to step in and help. But when Moscow decided to keep its wallet in its ...
MILESTONES: EMERGING MARKETS By Erik Heinrich The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries have agreed to set up a development bank to better serve their economic needs and reduce their reliance on Western financial institutions. The ...
MILESTONES: SLOVENIA By Gilly Wright While the new Slovenian government dismisses Cyprus comparisons, it could soon be facing the same fate, as €1 billion ($1.3 billion) of government debt comes up for renewal in June. Photo Credits: SLOVENIA: ...
MILESTONES: GLOBAL By Ronald Fink Cross-border dealmakers are anxiously awaiting the outcome of a long-running tax battle between UK telecom giant Vodafone and the Indian government. Photo Credits: VODAFONE: CLIVE CHILVERS / Shutterstock.com The dispute dates back to ...
CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS: CORPORATE DEBT By Gordon Platt A series of three major sukuk issues in Saudi Arabia in the first week of April demonstrated the growing depth of the debt capital markets in the kingdom, where corporations are ...
CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS: GLOBAL EQUITY/DRS By Gordon Platt The New York Stock Exchange and the Mexican Stock Exchange were the top exchanges for initial public offerings in the first quarter, according to research firm Renaissance Capital. The once-sleepy ...
CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS: FOREIGN EXCHANGE By Gordon Platt The euro slumped to a four-month low in the aftermath of the bailout of Cyprus, as market participants worried about the implications for other countries on the periphery of the eurozone. ...
CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS: MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS By Gordon Platt The falling yen is raining on Japan’s parade of overseas acquisitions, which had a record-breaking year in 2012, when the yen was rising. The first three months of 2013 constituted ...
NEWSMAKERS: US By Udayan Gupta For Michael Dell, the University of Texas dropout who created one of the most successful PC businesses in the world, the past few months have brought high drama. Michael Dell: Caught in ...
NEWSMAKERS: CHINA By Luca Ventura As China’s economy faces its slowest growth in more than a decade, the focus turns to the new Finance minister, Lou Jiwei. Lou, 63, has arguably the highest international profile among prime minister ...
NEWSMAKERS: CHILE By Forrest Jones Former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet wants her old job back. A single mother and the leader of the center-left Concertación coalition, she announced in March that she plans to run for president this November. ...
NEWSMAKERS: INDONESIA By Valentina Pasquali With just over a year to go before the 2014 elections and in a move that caught many observers by surprise, Indonesia’s president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has appointed current Finance minister Agus Martowardojo as ...
Do Bank Assets As A Multiple Of GDP Correlate To Bank Risk? Banks assets as a multiple of GDP has been considered a possible indicator of systemic risk. The following chart compiled by the Institute of International Finance showing ...
