Problems have continued to mount for the German banking sector in 2019. According to Ronit Ghose, the global head of banks research at Citibank, German lenders are in a much worse position than their European counterparts—and that even includes Italy when it comes to profitability.
In mid-June, Cambria Africa announced that its Zimbabwe-based subsidiary—the payment-services provider Payserv—had suspended its service to its bank customers in Zimbabwe. According to Cambria, the suspension was due to a “collective refusal to pay historical and contracted pricing to Payserv Africa in US dollars
Though there are serious threats to global trade from potential trade wars, it continues to flow. Like clean drinking water, trade and the trade finance that secures it, are crucial to the health of the global economy and to that of individual nations. How can trade and trade finance be nurtured, especially in the face of costs and tensions that threaten to turn off the tap?
The sub-Saharan Africa business boom has lost a lot of its momentum in recent years, but mergers and acquisitions have picked up the slack. All across the area, banks are merging as an avenue to improve their balance sheets and gain market share in the lackluster-growth environment. Although this approach may work to achieve some goals, there are downside factors that banks should consider before jumping into the M&A lifeboat.
The oil price affects all of us, so its movements are a popular target of speculation. So far in 2019, the oil price has been tracking upward, and oil-market watchers are asking themselves if it could hit $100 per barrel soon. The definitive answer remains elusive, as the multiple and at times conflicting elements that determine the price of oil are in a word: complicated. Stay tuned as OPEC meets in June.
With gross domestic product (GDP) growth consistently above 5 percent throughout this decade, and in double digits for much of the previous decade, Myanmar has been one of South East Asia’s fastest-growing economies for quite some time. What’s more, this newly liberalised nation is being touted to likely continue growing expeditiously well into the 2020s.
In October 2018, S&P Global Ratings issued a stark warning pertaining to China’s mounting debt problems. According to the ratings agency, the country’s local governments may be sitting on a pile of debt worth up to 40 trillion yuan ($6 trillion).
Experienced investors know that the most lucrative returns can come in the least attractive packages. Frontier markets, the world’s pre-emerging markets, could be the new frontier for high growth—at least for those investors who can look past the higher risks. Is the frontier market worth those risks? Many investors believe it is, which is why the market is only slightly less popular than its developed and emerging counterparts.
President Jair Bolsonaro assumed Brazil’s highest political office on January 1, 2019. From mid-2016 to the end of 2018, a team of experts worked diligently to improve Brazil’s integration with the global economy in such areas as relations with international organizations, domestic framework for officially supported export credits and trade policy. Their initiatives provide the new administration with a strong path to prosperity through reduction of lingering barriers to international inclusion.
Ecuador, on South America’s northwest coast, is known for its relatively high growth and income and appropriately competitive banking sector. Since 1972, Banco del Pacifico has risen above its peers by serving its customers through the most innovative means available. In our interview, CEO Efrain Vieira Herrera explains how Banco del Pacifico is continuing to break through the traditional boundaries of Ecuadorian banking to new frontiers, much to the delight of its customers.