Opinion

Bashing European banks together in a game of spin-the-deal-wheel makes for great headlines — UniDeutsche? BarChart? — but it will do little to dent the record market share in investment banking their US rivals enjoy. Of the many diseases blighting Europe’s financial industry, the most relevant one for clients is the gaps in its global presence. As long as the ...

Since becoming France’s president last year, Emmanuel Macron has made bold moves. He has modernized the economy by relaxing labor rules, reducing taxes for entrepreneurs, and making the higher education system more meritocratic. His government’s new budget includes the biggest tax cuts introduced in France in more than a decade. Yet the public remains unimpressed. Macron’s approval rating has been ...

When one of India’s largest shadow bankers — an institution with 169 subsidiaries that calls itself Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) — admitted to a series of defaults last week, Indian markets came close to a crisis. Fearing that a prolonged investment slowdown would intensify, the government invoked a little-known clause in India’s Companies Act and appointed a new ...

Investors’ pens are hovering a bit longer before writing checks to fintech startups. Funding Circle Holdings Plc was once tipped to be valued at as much as 2 billion pounds ($2.6 billion) in its initial public offering (IPO). When it made its market debut last week, the online lending marketplace weighed in at a skinnier 1.5 billion pounds. That’s still ...

Australia’s investigation into misconduct within its financial-services sector is moving towards the last act. Just don’t expect to see the bad guys get punished. The Royal Commission, which published its interim report, has heard a litany of bad practices the country’s banks, insurers, financial advisers and others have committed, from charging dead people fees to duping the corporate regulator. The ...

The descent of American capitalism into a racket is being greased by professed capitalists in government, in collaboration with professed capitalists in what is called, with decreasing accuracy, the private sector. This is occurring under the auspices of Republicans, and while many Democrats are arguing, with some accuracy but more incoherence, this: The government has become a servant of grasping ...

After four successive days of increasing risk spreads, and after a prominent politician, Claudio Borghi, said there was an advantage to having your “own currency,” Italy is back squarely on both public and private radar screens as a potential source of systemic economic and financial disruptions. This has led to suggestions that the country could become “a new Greece.” While ...

We all agree, they said. Please make more rules for us, they said. Give more money to our regulators, they said. When an assemblage of savvy corporate lawyers converges on such improbable sentiments, skepticism is usually in order. Last week’s privacy hearing on Capitol Hill demanded a load of it. Representatives from numerous tech and telecom luminaries — including Amazon, ...

Christine Lagarde and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have answered the easy question but dodged the hard ones. Yes, of course an era of tit-for-tat tariffs dims the global economic outlook. So … what can the IMF do about it? Does it need more funding to protect the international economy, given the weakening scene? Director Christine Lagarde should say so ...

The Italian government has finally presented its much-awaited economic and fiscal forecasts. They are an exercise in smoke and mirrors of which American-Hungarian illusionist Harry Houdini would be proud. The inflated growth figures and frankly incredible future budget adjustments are unlikely to sway investors and the European Commission. Italy is heading for a fight with the European Union (EU) and, more ...