Western Europe Archives

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Economics, Policy & Regulation

UK ELECTION | UNCERTAIN RESULT LIKELY TO IMPACT ECONOMY

Milestones | United Kingdom As Britons prepare for elections on May 7, the only certainty appears to be uncertainty, which looks set to continue until polling day—and maybe for some time after.

Banking

BID BATTLE FOR PORTUGUESE BANK HEATS UP

Banking | Portugal/Angola A tug of war is developing over Portugal’s fourth-largest lender, Banco BPI, between its two largest shareholders.

Capital Raising & Corporate Finance

CYPRUS TAUNTS EUROPE BY HOSTING RUSSIAN NAVAL VESSELS | MILESTONES

Milestones | Cyprus The enormous economic challenges faced by Greece have overshadowed a different kind of drama elsewhere in the Mediterranean.

Banking

EBRD TO CREATE A STRONG & STABLE GREECE | MILESTONES

Milestones | Greece On March 3, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development approved a request from Athens to invest directly in Greece.

Banking

ECB’S QE: WHO’S IN AND WHO’S OUT?

Banking | Europe In its first round of QE, the ECB said that the bonds of only seven European financial institutions were eligible—until further revision, which won’t happen until at least April 15.

Banking

EX-INSURER MAY REFOCUS CREDIT SUISSE TOWARD ASIA | NEWSMAKERS

Newsmakers | Switzerland Swiss giant Credit Suisse stepped out of the industry’s traditional talent pool in March when it hired Tidjane Thiam as chief executive.

Award Winners

KNOW YOUR CORE CUSTOMER

with Jan Rasmussen, Nordea Markets

Banking

NEW CEO CHANGES PACE FOR STANDARD CHARTERED | NEWSMAKERS

Newsmakers | United Kingdom The appointment of Bill Winters to replace Peter Sands as CEO of Standard Chartered has been universally welcomed, as the troubled bank saw profits fall by 30% last year compared with 2013 levels.

Banking

RBS: A LEANER, MEANER CORPORATE BANKING MACHINE?

Banking | United Kingdom In its 2014 annual report published in February, RBS announced that CIB, which includes global transaction services, will reduce its geographical footprint from 38 to 13 countries.

Banking

Is RBS Getting Out Of Transaction Services?

Royal Bank Of Scotland plans to vastly scale back its Transaction Services business. It is a further sign of the challenging times faced by global transaction banks.

Capital Raising & Corporate Finance

FRANCE: WINEMAKER PLANS IPO USING CROWDFUNDING

Capital Markets | Equity Capital Raising Burgundy vineyard Domaine Chanzy expects to be the first company to conduct an initial public offering using crowdfunding, which enables companies to raise money from members of the public, typically via the Internet.

Banking

SANTANDERS CLOUD GAMBIT: WILL MORE BANKS FOLLOW THEIR LEAD?

Trends | Global Banking On the surface at least, Spain’s Banco Santander and Cloud storage providers do not appear to have much in common.