IIF and Paris Club to collaborate on debt relief, but S&P warns on default
Private and official creditors to the world’s poorest countries agreed to collaborate on a debt standstill beginning on May 1. The Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) applies to 77 countries – the majority in Africa – that have outstanding debt...
A cautionary tale of debt relief
Many governments in the emerging world are facing a difficult conundrum: how to balance the near-term health risks of Covid-19 against the long-term impact of lost livelihoods. Underdeveloped healthcare systems and fragile economies mean that many of these countries do...
AML: Record fine gives Swedbank a chance to move on
Jens Henriksson, CEO of Swedbank, comments on the final report on the bank’s money laundering during a news conference at the bank’s head office in Sundbyberg on March 23 A fine levied against Swedbank for money-laundering deficiencies of SEK4 billion...
When will coronavirus Covid-19 trigger the World Bank’s pandemic bond?
Note: This story was first published on March 4 but will be updated regularly as new data becomes available. A World Health Organization (WHO) situation report on March 3 catalogued nearly 91,000 cases of coronavirus Covid-19 across 76 countries, causing more...
Emerging Europe will need help to fight the coronavirus downturn
As the crisis gathers momentum and countries such as the UK, US and Germany announce stimulus packages amounting to 10% to 15% of GDP, the possibility has to be faced that central and southeastern Europe (CESEE) will need support of...
Europe: Who benefits from negative rates?
It is too easy to suspect that the wider politicization of monetary policy in Europe influences some bankers’ attacks on negative rates – in addition to their own self-interest – and particularly in Germany. In fact, monetary easing hasn’t just...
Negative rates may be curbing credit case-by-case, says UniCredit’s Mustier
UniCredit CEO Jean Pierre Mustier Jean Pierre Mustier, head of the European Banking Federation and chief executive of UniCredit, has given a stark warning to the European Central Bank (ECB) on the risks of negative rates. Speaking to Euromoney as...
Coronavirus: The Asian Development Bank prepares for an uncertain future
The coronavirus will affect the face and focus of development banks and commercial lenders, undermine balance sheets and credit ratings of sovereign states, and even alter how and if multilaterals fund themselves, a top development official warns. In an interview...
Libor and Covid-19: Risk-free rates no more
Remember Libor transition? In the chaos of the last month the topic that has, or should have been, top of mind at many banks has been overrun by the panic and dislocation that the spread of Covid-19 has wrought in...
Coronavirus: How to fix pandemic bonds
With the coronavirus pandemic touching nearly every country in the world, the pandemic bond that the World Bank issued in 2017 has been under scrutiny. Despite more than 735,000 cases of Covid-19 and nearly 35,000 deaths attributed to it as...