Global news and insight for corporate financial professionals
LESSONS FROM EUROPE Corporate comprehension of the benefits of going green is far more advanced in Europe than in the US. But America’s businesses could easily catch up. Stark differences: Europe and the US have taken very different ...
COUNTRY REPORT / PORTUGAL Increased competition from new entrants to the European Union has dealt a severe blow to Portugal’s economy. Tourism and investment in renewable energy are helping it pick up the slack. Calm before the ...
EUROPE UBS: Its third cash call, this time to investors, was successful. Almost a year after the US subprime crisis burst onto the wider global stage, Europe’s banks are paying ...
CORPORATE TOOLBOX — SEPA Six months after SEPA’s introduction, banks are still trying to devise ways to encourage the businesses they serve to jump aboard. Additional optional services may provide the answer. The introduction of the euro in January ...
COUNTRY REPORT / GREECE Steady domestic economic growth and significant inward investment are helping Greece battle the headwinds of a tough global economy. Buoyed by several booming industries, economic growth rates above the European Union average, strong investment ...
UNITED KINGDOM Darling: Favors a collegiate cross-border regulation system. Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer Alistair Darling has been criticized for his handling of the Northern Rock bailout, and he is the subject of an Internet campaign ...
Germany Ackermann: Global watchdog could prevent market bubbles Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann suggests that creating a global financial sector watchdog could prevent an encore of the global market storm unleashed by the US subprime crisis. ...
Europe McCreevy: Securitization makes risk get lost, not disappear Six months into the credit crunch, and with banks in other parts of the world such as India still announcing losses from the sub-prime crisis, the European Commission has ...
Germany Hunt: Legacy airlines lock in customers with "bribery" In a move that is clearly aimed at drumming up corporate business, upstart UK-based business-class-only airline Silverjet has rolled out an innovative loyalty program that takes the benefits ...
UNITED KINGDOM While many Western banks may be struggling with liquidity and funding issues, Middle Eastern banks, awash with liquidity, are increasingly making their presence felt in Western financial markets. One such bank is Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB), whose ...
UNITED STATES / EUROPE With corporate fat cats’ earnings increasingly in the spotlight, particularly in these credit-challenged times, it appears that CEO remuneration packages vary markedly depending on which side of the pond they are on. According to ...
COUNTRY REPORT / CYPRUS Cyprus is hoping that its recent adoption of the euro will help it better survive—and perhaps even thrive—during the coming global turbulence. Cyprus is hoping that its recent adoption of the euro will help ...
United Kingdom Davy: Scrapping computers is a huge resource drain Businesses are facing increasing pressure to consider the environmental impact of their IT purchasing habits as awareness grows of the vast amount of natural ...
EXPANDING HORIZONS ICELAND Iceland is going all out to expand its economy—and the global reach of its banks and corporations. With a wealthy consumer base that has the sixth-highest per capita GDP in the OECD, 0.8% unemployment, negligible ...
UK / GLOBAL Growing awareness: Firms see risk management benefits in going green Multinational corporations are waking up to the fact that being “green” is not just for environmentalists. That was the message that came out of a ...
UNITED KINGDOM Miliband: The European Union should ontinue to expand to the east The United Kingdom’s foreign secretary, David Miliband, says that the European Union should gradually expand further into Eastern Europe, including Russia, as well as into ...
EUROPE Europe's payments landscape is set to change dramatically with market reforms. Banks and companies in other parts of the world are watching with interest as the deadline for radical transformation of the UK and Europe’s cross-border payments ...
UNITED KINGDOM/UNITED STATES Divett: Offshoring IT involves hidden costs. Offshoring information technology services is an emotive subject that incites mixed responses from most companies. Although Wall Street financial firms were among the early adopters of outsourcing, sending their ...
REGIONAL REPORT / NORDIC BANKING As Nordic banks look further outside their home markets for growth, the rewards—and also the risks—are increasing. Over the past few years, banks in the Nordic region have benefited from highly favorable economic conditions across ...
EUROPE Desmares: Corporates cool on SEPA. Businesses and public sector organizations operating in Europe have until 2010 to abandon existing national payment instruments and adopt new pan-European credit transfer and direct debits. At least that is the ...