RCFs: Maxing out your credit is always very expensive
Ask any corporate what the defining feature of the onset of the Covid-19 crisis was for their business and the answer will be the same: shock at the speed with which all business activity – and therefore cashflow – halted....
Sideways: Banks get to mark their own balance sheet homework
Deutsche Bank became the latest firm to warn that it will miss capital targets due to provisions and an expanded balance sheet, in a pre-announcement of its first-quarter earnings on Sunday April 26. The big surprise in the release was...
Will Covid-19 give CEE banks the edge in the fight against fintech?
In central and eastern Europe, some embattled senior bankers are taking comfort in the thought that the Covid-19 crisis might help them see off the challenge from fintechs and other non-bank players. It is easy to see why. At any...
DBS’s Gupta pans banks’ dividend cuts, sees Covid-19 as threat to all
When Euromoney catches up with Piyush Gupta, he is keen to discuss the second great financial challenge of the 21st century through both a wide and a narrow lens. Before we speak, the chief executive of Singapore’s DBS Bank asks...
Coronavirus: The Asian Development Bank boosts aid for trade
Kenji Yuhaku, senior strategy, policy and partnerships adviser at the Asian Development Bank First in, first out? When China posted a sharp fall in new cases of Covid-19 in early April, followed by South Korea, some people began to hope....
Country risk: Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia et al demonstrate MENA is not equally fragile
MENA economies are walking on eggshells, with some more likely to crack under the added pressure of coronavirus than others Risk experts have been busy downgrading the Middle East and North African region as they evaluate the likely impact of...
Coronavirus: France takes the lead on SME funding
Given how little cash small businesses tend to keep in reserve, the speed at which banks are able to dispense government-backed emergency loans will be vital to an economy’s ability to weather Covid-19 lockdowns. In France banks are confident that...
Coronavirus: Italian banks try to make up for lost time
People queue for food in a street in Italy after stockpiling left many supermarket shelves bare After the lockdowns in response to the coronavirus pandemic spread across Europe this March, bankers in Italy watched with rising anger and frustration as...
UN’s Mohieldin says SDGs are a framework for response and recovery
When the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030 framework was launched in 2015, preparation for the challenges of the future was firmly in mind. Within SDG3 (health), the sub-category of pandemic preparation was included, but few people perhaps imagined...
QE in CEE: What you need to know
Until very recently, bond buying by central banks was a phenomenon limited to the world’s largest and most advanced economies. As the Covid-19 crisis has deepened, however, policymakers in smaller and less developed markets have taken a leaf out of...