World Beaters: Best Banks 2010
COVER STORY: ANNUAL SURVEY – WORLD'S BEST BANKS 2010 By Gordon Platt Global Finance unveils its annual list of the best banks globally, regionally and by country. ...
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Cover Story
World Beaters
COVER STORY: ANNUAL SURVEY – WORLD'S BEST BANKS 2010 By Gordon Platt Global Finance unveils its annual list of the best banks globally, regionally and by country. Investors, depositors and corporations are concerned about the health of ...
Features
Asia’s Banks Take The Lead
EM REGIONAL BANKING FOCUS: ASIA By Michael Shari A consistent focus on traditional-style banking has enabled Asia's financial giants to emerge from the recent crisis in fine fettle. On any given day at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, ...
Country Focus: Peru
SECOND ACT By Antonio Guerrero In his second term, Peru’s president Alan Garcia is making amends for the shambles he left his country in after his first term. Peruvian president Alan Garcia is leading one of the ...
Global Outperformers
EM REGIONAL BANKING FOCUS: LATIN AMERICA By Denise Bedell Latin America is a hotbed of growth, presenting a wealth of opportunities for domestic and international banks. With some of the highest growth rates seen anywhere worldwide ...
New Partnerships
EM REGIONAL BANKING FOCUS: AFRICA By Nick Kochan Africa's banks are looking to forge new links as they seek to expand across the continent. The African banking industry has emerged from the global financial crisis largely intact ...
Risky Business
FOCUS: RISK CONSULTING By Paula L. Green Companies are showing increasing interest in employing risk consultants to help them manage their exposure. As they protect employees, property and supply chains flung around the globe, corporate executives are ...
Shifting Sands
EM REGIONAL BANKING FOCUS: MIDDLE EAST By Jonathan Gregson Many banks in the Middle East are still suffering the after-effects of the global financial crisis. Over the past decade the Middle East's banking sector has become ...
Slow Recovery
EM REGIONAL BANKING FOCUS: CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE By Jonathan Gregson Hit hard during the financial crisis, Central and Eastern Europe's banking sector is still fragile and vulnerable to external shocks. During the boom times of ...
Award Winners
World’s Safest Banks 2010
ANNUAL SURVEY: SAFEST BANKS by Dan Keeler Global Finance selects the world's safest banks—the 50 institutions with the highest ratings from the leading international credit ratings agencies—and the safest banks in seven regions. It is a measure ...
Holding Steady
ANNUAL SURVEY: CENTRAL BANKER REPORT CARDS by Gordon Platt, Antonio Guerrero and Dan Keeler Central bankers sit tight in the face of renewed global uncertainty. Indications that the global economic recovery is losing momentum have created a ...
Best In Class 2010
ANNUAL SURVEY: WORLD’S BEST BANKS A selection from Global Finance’s best banks awards from the past year. BEST FOREIGN EXCHANGE PROVIDERS BEST DERIVATIVES PROVIDERS BEST SUB-CUSTODIANS BEST SUB-CUSTODIANS (cont.) BEST ISLAMIC FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS BEST TREASURY ...
World’s Biggest Banks 2010
ANNUAL SURVEY: WORLD'S BIGGEST BANKS by Dan Keeler Global Finance ranks the world’s 50 biggest banks, as measured by total assets After a tumultuous three years, characterized by colossal write-downs, credit ratings downgrades, nationalizations, bailouts and hurriedly ...
Emerging Markets
Brazilians Develop Taste for Chilean Wines
EMERGING MARKETS INVESTOR: COMPANY TO WATCH By Gordon Platt Viña Concho y Toro, the largest wine exporter in Chile, recently signed a global marketing agreement with Manchester United Football Club in England—although maybe it should have signed with ...
Emerging Markets Investor
EMERGING MARKETS INVESTOR: NEWS By Gordon Platt India's equity market indices have gained more than 80% since early 2009, but the market lacks depth and breadth, with a high concentration of trading in a few top companies, according ...
Emerging Markets: Africa
ROUNDUP By Antonio Guerrero Uneasy balance: Mugabe (right) and Tsvangirai still have issues with power sharing South Africa's state-owned development lender Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) plans to issue bonds and sell an estimated $3.6 billion worth of its ...
Emerging Markets: Brazil
ROUNDUP By Antonio Guerrero With Brazil's economy expected to grow at around 7% this year and borrowing costs declining, Brazilian companies are seeking financing for their expansion plans. MMX, a leading metals and mining company, hopes to raise ...
Emerging Markets: China
ROUNDUP By Thomas Clouse The real deal: Insurers now have the chance to invest China's most recent economic figures show policymakers' efforts to reign in the property market without derailing the country's economic recovery are achieving mixed results. ...
Emerging Markets: India
ROUNDUP By Aaron Chaze With its fifth rate rise of the year India's central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, launched another attack on inflation last month. The bank upped its key rate to 6.0% from 5.75% in ...
Emerging Markets: Middle East
ROUNDUP By Gordon Platt The six member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) agreed at a meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, last month to postpone a planned customs union for several additional years. At the exceptional meeting ...
Emerging Markets: Russia
ROUNDUP By Kim Iskyan Inflation has in recent weeks climbed rapidly up the macroeconomic agenda in Russia, as the summer's wildfires and drought throughout the country decimated grain crops and triggered sharp price hikes. Inflation has long been ...
Rusal Plans To Create DR Program in Russia
EMERGING MARKET INVESTORS: DR NEWS By Gordon Platt Rusal, the world's largest producer of aluminum, plans to create a Russian depositary receipt (RDR) program on the Micex Stock Exchange and the Russian Trading System by the end of ...
The World's Safest Banks
SIBOS: Remittances
BANKS MAKE A BID FOR A GROWING MARKET By Anita Hawser Technological innovations and the rapid acceleration of globalization are driving a sharp increase in banks' interest in the remittances market. We are on the cusp of ...
SIBOS 2010
With thousands of banks and a growing number of corporations attending each year, the Brussels-based international banking network SWIFT's annual Sibos conference has become a crucial forum for debates in transaction banking. This year's conference, to be held in Amsterdam, ...
SIBOS: Asian Transaction Banking
REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT By Denise Bedell Corporates are demanding increasingly sophisticated cash and trade solutions within Asia. Those banks that want to stay competitive must step up their game. Asia is a key growth area for transaction banking ...
SIBOS: Payments Innovation
UNCHARTED TERRITORY By Anita Hawser Banks are struggling to keep up with nonbank rivals in the race to create the next generation of payment systems. It may have been unfettered innovation that got banks into hot water ...
SIBOS: Supply Chain Finance
CHANGE MANAGEMENT By Denise Bedell Banks are changing the way they look at their own transaction business to help companies see further into their working capital management processes. The need for integrated trade and cash solutions was ...
Country Report
Country Report: Turkey
STAYING THE COURSE By Gordon Platt Turkey has bounced back from a sharp economic contraction to become one of the region’s best performers. Its prospects are brighter than ever. Turkey's constitutional referendum last month gave a boost ...
Milestones
The Great Recession Lives Up To Its Name
MILESTONES: UNITED STATES By Gordon Platt It's official. The US recession that came to be known as the Great Recession is over. In fact, it's been over for more than a year, having officially ended in June 2009, ...
Asia’s Financial Centers Gain Ground On Rivals
MILESTONES: GLOBAL By Anita Hawser Hong Kong: One of the world’s top-three finance centers London and New York can rest easy. Despite the Dodd-Frank Act and other regulatory measures that threaten to split up banks, curb bankers' bonuses and ...
Companies Continue To Hoard Cash In Wake Of Credit Crunch
MILESTONES: GLOBAL By Anita Hawser It is not just banks that are coming under increasing criticism for their liquidity-hoarding tendencies. Cash-rich companies are facing similar complaints—and similar accusations that they are prolonging the pain in the economy as a whole ...
Poor Gain Better Access To Financial Services
MILESTONES: GLOBAL By Antonio Guerrero Despite the fact that 60% of the world's economies posted a drop in real per capita income last year, access to formal financial services in developing countries grew. According to "Financial Access 2010," ...
Corporate Finance
Economic Slowdown Could Benefit Dollar
CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS - FOREIGN EXCHANGE By Gordon Platt The world economic recovery may be slowing more rapidly than previously expected, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Growth in the Group of Seven developed economies will slow ...
High-Yield Bond Issuance Surges
CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS — CORPORATE DEBT By Gordon Platt August was supposed to be a sleepy month in the high-yield debt market, but it turned out to be anything but quiet. Total high-yield issuance in the US for ...
Petrobras Sale Clears Way for IPOs
CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS — GLOBAL EQUITY/DRS By Gordon Platt Petrobras, Brazil's state-run oil company, was scheduled to come to market with $35 billion of shares as Global Finance went to press. That would make the sale the world's ...
Resource Battle Turns To Potash
CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS - MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS By Gordon Platt The cross-border battle for global resources is now focused on potash, with BHP Billiton's $43 billion hostile bid for Saskatoon-based Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, the world's largest producer ...
Newsmakers
IMF And World Bank Lurch Into Conflict Over Emerging Markets
NEWSMAKERS: GLOBAL By Michael Shari As finance ministers and top executives of the world's largest banks converge in Washington for the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank this month, a simmering diplomatic conflict between ...
Kan Sees Off Leadership Challenge
NEWSMAKERS: JAPAN By Thomas Clouse Ozawa: Failed to unseat Japan’s prime minister Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan retained leadership of his political party and the country after political powerbroker Ichiro Ozawa unsuccessfully challenged him for his position in ...
Rating Upgrade Opens Door To Costa Rica Bond Issue
NEWSMAKERS: COSTA RICA By Dan Keeler With the ink still wet on a Moody's rating upgrade from Ba1 to Baa3 investment grade, Costa Rica has revealed it is considering a bond issue in the near future. José Rossi, ...