Global Banking

Banking crisis / central & eastern europe Central and Eastern Europe has suffered more than most regions as a result of the credit crunch. Some are concerned that economic turmoil may lead to social unrest.   Ukrainian prime minister, Yulia ...

ANNUAL SURVEY / BEST TRADE FINANCE BANKS Trade finance banks are enjoying rising demand for basic risk management services as world trade faces a difficult period. Global trade is expected to decline in 2009 for the first time since 1982, ...

BEST FX PROVIDERS Global Finance selects the leaders in the world’s biggest financial market.   The foreign exchange market has continued to thrive throughout the global financial crisis, providing some welcome profits for beleaguered financial institutions. Average daily turnover has ...

BANKING CRISIS FALLOUT Colossal losses by financial institutions have prompted calls for more-effective regulation. Refining the Basel banking rules might provide the answer.     Global crisis: For the biggest names in banking there has been nowhere to hide from ...

BEST INTERNET BANKS 2008 In the second of a two-part series, Global Finance identifies the best corporate/institutional and consumer Internet banks globally and in six regions.         These are tough times for banks to focus on Internet ...

BANKING ON INNOVATION SYSTEMIC RISK Businesses are finding imaginative ways to circumvent the credit crunch. The solutions they adopt now could have profound implications for their future operations.   For months this year, pessimists had been predicting a global financial ...

BACK TO BASICS ISLAMIC FINANCING The core ethical principles of Islamic finance have protected the industry from the worst effects of the credit crunch.   A customer makes a transaction at Emirates Bank in Dubai. One segment of the financial ...

A VERY BRITISH MELTDOWN A SYSTEM IN PERIL The swiftness of Britain’s transition from the cutting edge of innovation in banking and finance to representing the epitome of the global crisis has left many heads spinning. But in its dramatic ...

AFRICAN INFRASTRUCTURE FINANCE Despite the increasingly sophisticated solutions deployed to prevent it, rogue trading is still a serious problem in the banking industry.   Every year banks spend billions deploying sophisticated filtering and electronic “perimeter fence” technologies to try to ...

AUSTRIA       Citi's Rhodes: Current crisis is the US' biggest challenge in recent history. With Bank of America buying Merrill Lynch and Lehman’s filing for bankruptcy, the global credit crunch is clearly far from over. In fact, a ...

ANNUAL SURVEY / WORLD’S BEST BANKS 2008     Now more than ever, the world’s best banks deserve recognition for continuing to provide excellent products and high levels of service to their clients, despite the distractions of the global credit ...

CARIBBEAN FINANCE CENTERS Recent changes are helping the venerable finance centers of the Caribbean stave off increasingly intense international competition.             Partly in response to the US-led assault on their opaque banking systems and propensity ...

BRAZIL     Digging in: Brazilian miner Vale is investing heavily. After several years of steady profit growth, Brazil’s banking sector reported a slowdown in second-quarter 2008. Bradesco, Brazil’s largest non-state bank by assets, posted a 13% drop in second-quarter ...

SPOTLIGHT / GLOBAL CUSTODY Global custodians are experiencing strong growth and increasingly complex demands from their clients.   Propelled by the growth in increasingly sophisticated financial instruments and the emergence of new markets and clients, the universe of financial assets ...

GLOBAL         Almost a year into the credit crunch, it appears that there are still widespread market fears of another financial firm going under. And it seems that the next six months are crucial in terms of ...

  ANNUAL SURVEY The past 12 months have been some of the most difficult ever for investment banks, but many institutions continue to provide outstanding services to their clients.             Investment banks are still writing ...

In the first of a two-part series, Global Finance identifies the best online corporate and consumer banks by country and regionally by product or service category.   Times have been hard recently for banks’ information technology departments. The collapse of ...

GREASING THE WHEELS OF GLOBAL TRADE ANNUAL SURVEY / SUPPLY CHAIN FINANCE Global Finance pinpoints the leaders in the increasingly innovative, creative and commercially important field of supply chain finance.   The physical transportation of goods between buyers and suppliers ...

ANNUAL SURVEY / ISLAMIC FINANCE Global Finance selects the winners in a fast-growing area of finance that combines investing according to the tenets of Islamic law with modern financial products and systems.   Islamic finance is a system of ethical ...

SECTOR REPORT / ISLAMIC FINANCE The range of Islamic finance techniques is growing rapidly, but some are concerned that the most innovative products may be flouting shariah principles.   While conventional financial markets are still reeling from the credit crunch, ...