Financials

Jonathan Eng This week’s article will focus on some market expectations and key themes to look out for in 2018. Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research predict a macro bullish year so much so that they are ultimately bearish as investors seek to rein in after a prolonged period of growth. Global economic growth…

Isabella Ferros Be it Corporate Social Responsibly, Corporate Accountability, or Creating Shared Value, a plethora of terms have emerged and somewhat inconsequentially circulated the ranks of financial institutions over the last half century. Only recently have investment patterns actually begun to mirror these sentiments. Recent analysis shows that funds which have integrated environmental, social, and…

Jonathan Eng After the release of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) minutes on the 22nd November, there has been a mixture of reactions to the signalling of an increase in the Federal Rate. The minutes reflect a more positive atmosphere in the US economy; with a strengthening labour market and a gradual increase in…

Jonathan Eng With the start of 2018 mere weeks away, Basel III is set to be fully implemented across the EU and America. The roll-out has been gradual since its conception in 2010 to allow banks to restructure their balance sheets and capital structure. Basel III is a follow-up, voluntary, set of regulations from Basel…

Benjamin Foster Financial innovation company R3 CEV and its 22 member banks have developed a new, blockchain-based platform to enable cost effective and near instantaneous cross-border payments, based upon Corda, a distributed ledger technology. At present, international transactions can take several days to be fully finalised, leading not only to delays, but the greater potential…

Isabella Ferros Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), a method of digitally raising funds from the public using cryptocurrencies, have become an increasing quandary amongst regulators in recent months. Functionally, an ICO can be considered as a ‘coin sale’, whereby issuers accept cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ether in return for a proprietary ‘coin’ or ‘token’, which…

Alexander Baldwin   In the Bank of England’s latest round of UK annual stress tests, RBS, Barclays, and Standard Chartered Bank all failed to meet the minimum standards in the stress scenarios, with the former emerging as the worst performer.   BoE modelled their tests in the toughest scenarios ever set by the central bank.…

Tamas Laszlo Babos Donald Trump’s election instantly impacted global markets. Although the vote’s exact effect on Europe’s trade, security, and political landscape remains unclear, it seems to be positive from the European Central Bank’s perspective. The European economy could enjoy a boost due to the reaction of markets, which would indeed widen the action space…

Ąžuolas Ališauskas   For those naïve enough to believe that European banks have resolved their problems, the Bank of England’s most recent stress tests serve as a perfect reminder not to rush to conclusions. Although only RBS failed the test and vulnerabilities were highlighted at Barclays and Standard Chartered, the aggregate Return on Equity (RoE)…