In The News

Financial Times: China’s Balancing Act on Debt Is Becoming Trickier

November 17, 2017
Some factories in China are paying workers to stay home, part of a plan to ease the nation’s serious debt levels – which has grown nearly fivefold over the past decade to $29 trillion today. “The debt, equivalent to 260 per cent of gross domestic product, has brought with it dramatic declines in credit efficiency,” explains the Financial Times. “The International Monetary Fund points out that in...

The Atlantic: Tax Havens and the Manafort Indictment

Krishnadevj Calamur October 30, 2017
Paul Manafort, the US president’s former campaign chairman, and a business partner have been indicted for laundering $75 million through shell companies and foreign bank accounts in Cyprus, Seychelles and elsewhere. “The indictment emerged from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” reports Krishnadev Calamur for the...

Asian Banking & Finance: New Way of Banking Taking Over India, Indonesia

October 16, 2017
India pulled its largest banknotes from circulation in November 2016, an effort to stop corruption and money laundering. “But in the run up and the immediate aftermath of the policy’s implementation, something noteworthy happened in the digital space: more people started using digital modes of payments including mobile and internet banking,” reports Asian Banking & Finance. “Digibank, in a...

Reuters: Globalization's Castaways Haunt Central Bankers

Jonathan Spicer and Howard Schneider August 24, 2017
Central bankers insist that open borders and free trade contribute to national and individual prosperity. Yet at the US Federal Reserve research conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, bankers and economists acknowledge a challenge for the elderly, the poor, the uneducated, and the workers who lose their jobs due to technological advances and competition within their own country or beyond – anyone...

Bloomberg: Britain’s Financial Power Is Already Seeping Away

Alessandro Speciale, Gavin Finch and Steven Arons June 26, 2017
The writing is on the wall for Great Britain as banking officials increasingly question London’s ability to endure as a global banking center after British citizens demonstrated isolationist tendencies by voting to exit from the European Union in 2016. Major banks based in the United States, Japan and elsewhere consider relocating operations from London to Frankfurt: “an exodus would jeopardize...

South China Morning Post: Risks Rising for China’s City Commercial Banks

Laura He April 11, 2017
“City commercial banks across China are increasingly relying on interbank funding and wealth management products as deposit substitutes– but growing investment holdings, waning liquidity and weakened capital buffers have rendered them more vulnerable to financial disruption, according to analysts at Fitch Ratings,” reports Laura He for South China Morning Post. Her article focuses on smaller...

Barron’s: Asia’s Biggest Central Banks Diverge

William Pesek March 21, 2017
The People’s Bank of China, in line with the US Federal Reserve’s March 15th decision, recently increased some interest rates while the Bank of Japan responded by maintaining its negative interest rate target. Divergence in monetary policy “adds a new element of market uncertainty into 2017,” writes William Pesek for Barron’s. The governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan, instituted...