Will the Beirut port explosion bring about true change in Lebanon?
In Beirut’s Karantina, an area devastated by an explosion at the city’s port on August 4, volunteers have stepped in to help clean up its streets. They are helping the area’s vulnerable – and now homeless – residents where the state...
SMEs must manage cash flow better to survive after the reopening
As businesses around the world emerge from lockdowns and hope to rebuild their revenues back towards normal, there’s a new alternative data source to track every step of the journey. Sidetrade, a provider of artificial intelligence-driven software for companies to...
Europe’s neobanks search for elusive profit in SMEs and the US
Europe’s neobanks are switching their attention to small business banking and expansion in the US, as they strive for global scale and profitability. Business banking will soon be a bigger revenue earner for UK neobank Revolut than retail clients, which...
RBS: Bó’s closure highlights traditional banks’ digital deficit
Bó, RBS’s digital bank for retail customers, announced in early May it was to close after just six months in business, with only 11,000 customers. RBS’s digital bank for businesses, Mettle, will continue to operate. Digital solutions are thriving as...
Norwegian deal shows depth of turmoil in aviation finance
Norwegian Air’s nail-biting $1 billion debt-for-equity swap with bondholders and lessors on May 4 has given the struggling airline vital breathing room, allowing it to access up to an equivalent of $290 million of state-guaranteed loans. But according to one...
Foreign investors search for licences and profit as China NPLs rise
China has opened the door wider to foreign funds keen to invest in its fast-growing market for distressed bank debt, allowing them to apply for licences for the first time to operate as provincial-level asset management companies (AMCs). The trigger...
Private equity can be the big winner in the Covid-19 bear market
Investors may already be eagerly hunting bargains amid the carnage in the coronavirus bear market One large and powerful group of investors, with plenty of money to put to work, should be quite relaxed at the precipitous falls stock markets...
China’s RMB is less popular as it ages
When financial messaging provider Swift published its latest RMB Tracker in late January, almost no one noticed. For good reason. Anyone not focused on US politics or Australian fires was fretting about the growing threat of coronavirus. While too late...
Non-bank trade finance providers look to boost market share
Emerging market (EM) manufacturers were facing difficulties even before the coronavirus pandemic decimated international demand for many of their products. The Asian Development Bank estimated that $1.5 trillion of requested trade finance was rejected last year – a figure that...
Longer-term rise in risk is the key problem for US investors
‘The broader question is whether the severity will ultimately lie closer to 2008 or the 1929 Great Depression’ The US risk score declined in Euromoney’s country risk survey in Q1 2020, although it has the potential to improve with the...