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ELECTRONIC FX FOR CLIENTS did not die with the dotcom crash. It is alive and well. Senior bankers and corporate treasurers met with THE BANKER'S deputy editor Brian Caplen to [...]

Since September 11, the finance sector has come under the spotlight for its role as a conduit for terrorist funds. Politicians are making great speeches and blaming the banks. But [...]

Asian companies are expanding both regionally and globally and business executives are having to spend an increasing amount of time travelling. However business executives need to give more consideration to their exact travel requirements on an overseas visit and seek out the travel service provider that offers the best personal service. Executives should also make use of tailor-made services and frequent flyer programmes (FPPs).

More and more bears are appearing on Asian stock markets. The stock market is expected to perform badly by the end of the 1990s, according to many market followers. Stocks have reached a peak, and will decline soon, according to Marc Faber, fund manager in Hong Kong. Investors should keep their capital and retain their previous gains in a bear market.

Asian countries must provide a balanced stock market regulation environment in conjunction with solid economies, to encourage big institutional money into their stock markets. Asia is already attracting nearly two thirds of the total net equity capital flowing into emerging markets, helped by improved regulation and greater liquidity in the markets. Asia faces competition for capital from Latin America.

Economies in Asia are growing faster than those of Europe and North America and many corporations are earning larger profits than Western ones. Asia may soon be dictating policy to others or offering rather than accepting financial aid, if progress continues. However there are warnings that Asia could take its success for granted and suffer the same problems as Japan whose bubble economy burst dramatically.

Asia has an opportunity to lead the world out of economic recession and to create a new global prosperity for future generations. However, it must be prepared to become involved in international affairs and new initiatives. The emergence of Asia as a global force needs the restructuring of export-oriented economies and the creation of open markets. Asia's economic growth is faster than that of the West and its increasing demand for capital goods will benefit Western economies. During 1992, the U.S. sold $4.1 billion-worth of professional, business and technical services to Asia, making it America's most important trading partner.

If your company is considering investing in Russia, it is essential that you check out the local governor. There are 89 regions in Russia and your fortunes in any of [...]

The arrest and imprisonment without trial of 42 bankers earlier this year has sent shock waves through the Ethiopian banking sector. While bankers in Addis Ababa are generally supportive of [...]

Managers with experience in Latin America are favoured by US multinationals because of their ability to stay cool under pressure. Latin American companies have learned to use their crisis-management skills to find new ways to achieve business growth. Beleaguered Asian managers could adapt the practices of their Latin American counterparts to help solve the economic problems in the Asia Pacific region.

The Russian Federation is attracting large sums of money from international fund managers, even though corruption is still rife in the region and financial dealings are often linked with violent organised crime. The market is expected to attract $1 billion in portfolio investment over the next six months, and some observers believe that the Moscow stock market will reach $100 billion by the end of the 1990s. However, others warn that investing in this region is far too risky.

Many of Asia's tightly held private companies are expected to list during the coming years, now that the region's stock markets are recovering. However future business success will depend on new sources of capital and new technology to compete in the open markets. Those expecting to list include Siam Motors, a Thai auto distributor, the Bimantara group of Indonesia and Binariang and PLUS a Malaysian telecoms venture

Custody (safekeeping of shares) contributes one third of Bank of New York's global profits, and it had to move quickly to help the situation in India, when the system rapidly became overwhelmed. The bank appointed the State Bank of India as a sub-custodian. Citbank, also a sub-custodian, found that customers were willing to pay more than the usual price for its services. The introduction of jumbo certificates covering deals of 1,000 shares and over has helped the situation.

Asian and Arab business communities both have the ability to operate in rugged environments and the inclination to do business through networks or personal contacts. There are opportunities for Asian investors in the independent power sector in the Gulf and they can also benefit from the Gulf's freedom from textile quotas.

Asian investors in Europe are now starting to note that protectionism is declining in European countries. At first glance, Europe looks like a good investment, with a European Union market consisting of 350 million consumers. However, most Asia-Pacific region manufacturers are concentrating on developing their neighbouring markets, according to Victor Fund, Hong Kong Trade Development Council's chairman.

Japanese bank profits are recovering at the same time as the banks are increasing their capital ratios, but they are growing their asset books only very slowly - quite a [...]

The ruling National Party in Honduras won a comfortable majority in the November 2009 elections (under the auspices of a military regime), but as the country's finance minister, William Chong, [...]

An old Arab proverb states that 'he who sees the calamity of other people finds his own calamity light'. This may be the best account of Islamic finance in 2010. [...]

One novelty used to lure tourists back to Saint Lucia, in the face of the global recession, has been a publicity campaign showing the beauty of the island's landscape, launched [...]

In the short term, any improvement in the Barbadian economy - including in levels of foreign investment, which ground to a halt with the crisis, and in unemployment, which is [...]

Felipe Larrain had good reasons for looking cheerful at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) meetings last month. At the time, a plan by the Chilean government to rescue the 33 [...]

In Italy, banks did not become scapegoats of the crisis in the same way as in many other countries. This was partly due to them being in better shape, so [...]

The broad story in European banking is one of deleveraging and, tortuous as it is, this is likely to carry on for some time. The challenge is doubly difficult at [...]

After an unprecedented bout of lending in 2009, during which some banks grew their loan books by as much as 50%, the leading Chinese banks are moderating growth rates to [...]

After five years of unfettered capitalist growth during which property prices rose 10 fold and Phnom Penh's colonial streets clogged up with Range Rover and Lexus cars, Cambodia was finally [...]

In Thailand, demonstrations and the reform agenda carry on side by side. Last month's protests against the government of prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva may have caught the international headlines but [...]

The crisis has made large companies face up to their responsibilities as corporate citizens and put a huge effort into using their skills and technologies to bring about positive global [...]

UniCredit is preparing for the upturn. Well-positioned in eastern Europe, a rights issue under its belt and with a fresh approach to customer relationships, the bank is looking to get [...]

The post-crisis world is beginning to take shape. New economic blocs are building, with China at the centre and trade flowing to the rising consumers in the emerging markets. This [...]

One of the side effects of the financial crisis is that it has woken banks up to the importance of their brand. Traditionally, many banks had assumed that their brand [...]

The usual way of building a financial centre is to provide the infrastructure and the tax breaks and to let the investors take care of finding business and skilled staff. [...]

Syria has been steadily liberalising its economy for the past two decades, with much of this effort focused on the banking sector. The time when six state-owned banks dominated the [...]

For a mortgage bank to pull back on mortgage lending in the midst of a housing boom is indeed a radical decision and not one to find favour with the [...]

The savviest finance ministers are using the crisis as an opportunity to restructure their economies so that going forward they will be more robust and competitive. In Thailand, the aim [...]

Venezuelan banks are labouring under a host of directives and controls that have left some of them short of capital and in poor condition to face any downturn in the [...]

Guyana is not exactly your average place. As the only English-speaking country on the South American continent, its land area sits well with its British colonial heritage - it is [...]

Currency unions are frequently talked about but seldom realised and there are only a handful in the world. One of the few is the eastern Caribbean currency union, which encompasses [...]

The logic of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) is impeccable. As well known as the Caribbean countries are in cultural terms - beaches, food, music - they are fairly insignificant in [...]

Reform of the international financial architecture was high on the agenda of this year's G-20 meeting in London in April. But smaller countries fear that things are not going in [...]

Trinidad and Tobago's banks are in the midst of a huge upheaval - some of it crisis related and, following the collapse of Clico, the insurance arm of CL Financial [...]

India's public sector banks used to be slow-moving bureaucratic behemoths, ripe for attack by up-and-coming private sector players. But now the sector has been shaken up by the competition and [...]

Just as state-run banks are back in vogue, so too are co-operatives. One of the leaders in the sector - espousing what is termed the 'Rhineland model' for its stakeholder [...]

Q: How is PrivatBank coping with the economic challenges in Ukraine? A: Like all Ukrainian banks, PrivatBank faces the pressures of the negative external environment, the challenges of the drop [...]

Some analysts have argued that merging the cultures of Itau and Unibanco will be challenging. Itau, they say, has been run by engineers who favour a very process-driven approach; Unibanco [...]

Sceptics might argue that there was as much luck as judgement in Standard Chartered's positive 2008 results, which set the bank apart from the rest of the international financial sector. [...]

Most bank CEOs feel that their institutions are more than adequately capitalised to face the crisis. They say that exotic financial structures were a major cause of the crisis but [...]

The world is rapidly dividing into good banks and bad banks - and here we are not talking about specially designated bad banks to hold toxic assets but in the [...]

The new international banking order is starting to take shape. The globalisers' ideal of a handful of universal giants stretching across every geography and banking the world has been slain. [...]

The tragedy of the banking crisis is that stricken banks have, under their roofs, a host of solid and healthy businesses together with one or two problem areas that may [...]

Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, said at last year's annual meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos that in the light of the crisis we must [...]