AIIB’s Jin finds strength in numbers in tough times
Development banks are forged in tough times, and no one knows that better than Jin Liqun. Coronavirus is a threat to everyone, but also a chance for such international financial institutions to prove their value to member countries, a fact...
Coronavirus is particularly cruel to Brazil
It is human nature, when self-isolating at a kitchen bench amid the sound of young children’s squabbles and Netflix programmes, to consider what comes next as coronavirus Covid-19 hits Latin America. What will be the short-term effects, and what will...
Coronavirus crisis ramps up pressure on Poland’s banks
Poland’s banks are bracing for an unprecedented shock as the Covid-19 crisis pushes the country towards its first recession for nearly 30 years. Analysts at Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) are predicting that the economy, which expanded by 4.1% in 2019,...
Debt relief for Africa as coronavirus Covid-19 crisis intensifies
The IMF is stepping up to the task of providing debt relief to free up fiscal space for Africa’s poorest countries to fight Covid-19, as finance ministers say a full waiver on all public and private sector debt is essential....
Argentine fintechs fear Fernández
Mercado Libre founder and CEO Marcos Galperín “I think they’ll use it to go after the fintechs.” That’s the statement of a finance analyst in Buenos Aires, about how he expects the banks to use this year’s recession to lobby the...
Covid-19 sends the corporate bond market – and everyone else – home
If you were to draw up a list of things that people would rather not have to do amidst an unprecedented market crash that had imposed home working across the industry, selling €2 billion of corporate bonds would probably feature...
Will Kenya’s oil price boost be lost to the coronavirus pandemic?
Kenya’s Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA) reduced petrol prices at the pump by KSh2 ($0.019) per litre on Friday – the first reduction in Kenya this year – after the oil price crash slashed import costs on the commodity....
ECR risk experts contemplate another financial crisis
The eurozone finds itself at the centre of the coronavirus pandemic and facing the economic consequences Euromoney’s first-quarter risk survey will be like no other since the global financial crisis of 2007/08 pushed sovereign borrowers to the brink of default....
The Fed did what it could, but it still can’t stop the financial panic
Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve For credit markets to operate, they need a functioning rates market beneath them. That is why the US Federal Reserve’s 100 basis point rate cut on Sunday night and its reopening of quantitative...
Coronavirus returns to bite China again
The feedback loop has started. On March 19, China announced no new cases of coronavirus in Hubei, whose capital Wuhan lies at the epicentre of the Covid-19 outbreak, for the first time in eight weeks. Good news? Sort of. Viral...