Chile on course for a higher credit rating
High five: Chile’s reaching new heights, even in the isolated centre of its copper-mining industry Chile’s risk score has improved this year, rising to 77.37 points out of a maximum 100, to its highest level in three years. That puts...
Swift gpi picks up the pace on real-time cross-border payments
The cross-border payments industry and the correspondent banking network that underpins it stand at a crossroads. For far too long, the service that corporates and consumers have received from their banks when transferring money internationally has been slow, expensive and...
Fintech disruption threatens wholesale payment revenues
By Anna Fedorova Wholesale payments and cash management (PCM) is a rapidly growing area, but existing players are under threat from technological disruption and must innovate in order to survive, according to a report by management consulting firm Oliver Wyman. In...
Western Europe banking: Is the Handlesbanken model under threat?
Svenska Handelsbanken is akin to a European Wells Fargo. Like its American equivalent, it is almost entirely focused on one country – Sweden – and very successfully, at least until recently. A cohesive workforce, consistent strategy and conservative risk attitude...
CEE banking: Go big or go home
What is the point of owning small banks in obscure markets? It’s a question western banking groups have been asking themselves ever since the financial crisis finally called time on a decade-long dash for assets across central and eastern Europe....
Financial inclusion: Sandbox set up to help fintechs fix finance in rural Africa
Fintechs have helped make financial services available to people that banks have long struggled to reach, but this has come at a price. Default rates among digital borrowers in Tanzania, for example, have reached 31% and in Kenya 12%, according...
CSR: Asset managers need to rethink governance
Companies with good corporate governance outperformed those without by some 24 basis points a month, according to a study released in November by asset manager Hermes. The research looked at the impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors on...
Mission impossible? What Banca Carige really needs is a buyer
When the European Central Bank (ECB) rejected Banca Carige’s capital conservation plan in August, its demand that the Ligurian lender must come up with a new one by the end of November was always going to be a tall order....
RBS kicks off wave of digital bank offshoots
Some of Britain’s biggest banks are launching a slew of new standalone online banks, as they experiment with new technology and brands, and try to thwart digital challengers. Royal Bank of Scotland’s Mettle, launched on November 6, will be one...
Investors on high alert for signs of weakness at Italian banks
Italy enjoyed per capita GDP of $37,481 at the end of 2007, according to CEIC Data. Fast-forward through the global financial crisis, the eurozone crisis and 10 years of austerity, and at the start of this year it had recovered...