By Andrei Skvarsky. The Luxembourg government is going to help Russian high-tech firms to get established in European Union markets under an agreement of June 7 with Sberbank, Russia’s biggest lender. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. The Luxembourg government is going to help Russian high-tech firms to get established in European Union markets under an agreement of June 7 with Sberbank, Russia’s biggest lender. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. Sberbank has suspended plans to launch transactions in cryptocurrencies because of the Russian government’s “negative” position on digital money, a top manager at Russia’s biggest lender said last week. Continue Reading
Some two dozen speakers, about half of them top figures in African banks, are going to take the floor at the Digital Banking Summit in Accra on August 19-20. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. Guernsey-based investment company ITI Funds has said it has entered into a partnership that arms it with a technology to significantly reduce risks inherent in cryptocurrency transactions. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. Herman Gref, CEO of Russia’s biggest lender Sberbank, has flatly and forcefully ruled out any chance of his return into government, where he spent many years as a key economic reformer earlier on, and said a governmental job would be “the most disastrous ending to my career”. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. London-based wealth and investment manager Sun Global Investments has co-arranged a $350m issue of three-year US dollar-denominated bonds with a yield of 6.4 per cent per year for Indiabulls Housing Finance (IBHF), India’s second-largest housing finance company. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital has hired Omar Gaafar, a former senior manager at Egyptian investment company Beltone Financial, as vice-president of the Moscow-based firm’s investment banking service for the Middle East and North Africa. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. Tolar HashNET, a technology firm based in ex-Yugoslav states, has developed and last month test-launched a blockchain platform that the United Nations has listed among projects supporting the Sustainable Development Goals set to the international community by the organisation. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. According to Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, cybercrime inflicted total damages of $1.5 trillion on companies worldwide last year and will rob them of another $2.5 trillion in 2019. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. Egyptian companies had about 150 meetings with foreign institutional investors owning assets totalling about $20bn during a recent conference organised by Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. Lebanon-based Bank Audi has adopted a device developed by US technology company Nexmo to maintain direct contact with customers through WhatsApp, an increasingly popular means of communication worldwide. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. A Russian startup has developed a mobile application that it says enables insurers to protect themselves from fraudulent claims via a pre-insurance inspection of a property item involving multiple photographs that are dated and timed and record the item’s location. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital is going to host a conference in Cape Town on April 9-10 to attract international, primarily South African, investment to Egypt, a country RenCap credits with highly successful economic reforms. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. A senior delegation from Sberbank, Russia’s biggest lender, hosted a round table in Abu Dhabi last month during which they called on United Arab Emirates businesses to invest in Russia and offered them “direct assistance” with potential Russian projects. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. London-based investment manager Sun Global Investments has organised a 10bn rupee ($145m) issue of bonds for a leading Indian housing finance provider, Housing Development Finance Corp (HDFC). Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. London-headquartered investment broker Sova Capital Limited has chosen Australian technology designer Iress to provide software for order management and post-trade processing in its prime services division. Continue Reading
Investors, brokers, consultants and any other financial services professionals will have plenty of opportunity for one-to-one meetings during Opal Exchange, a networking event in Florida on March 31-April 2. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. A banking syndicate led by French bank Natixis has lent an Italian company about €82m ($92m) for building what would be the first-ever offshore wind farm in the Mediterranean Sea. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. Money deposited by a company or another corporate client at Credit Bank of Moscow (CBM) at the end of any business day returns to the depositor with interest by 11am on the next business day via a new online service. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. Electronic payments companies Payger and Net Element, the former based in Munich and the latter in Miami, announced a partnership deal last week that, according to the two firms, offers retail shoppers wider opportunities to pay in cryptocurrencies. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. Five young entrepreneurs have been selected for a six-month seed accelerator programme in Senegal due to pioneering farming practices proposed by them. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. French investment bank Natixis has become the sole owner of Titres Cadeaux, which is also known as Titres Cado and is France’s fourth-biggest gift voucher operator, after buying a 50 per cent stake in it from La Banque Postale, a subsidiary of French postal service company La Poste. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. Russia’s central bank has stricken off five Russian foreign exchange companies with effect from January 27 for “repeated offences” against securities law. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. A Geneva-based nongovernmental organisation has announced it has launched a cryptocurrency, called the afro, that is purportedly designed to promote economic growth and financial inclusion in Africa. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. London-based debt investor Permira Debt Managers (PDM) is acting as sole senior secured lender to Validant, an international healthcare consultancy focused on regulation and compliance. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. Debt investor Permira Debt Managers (PDM) has continued its strategic line of investing in technology-focused companies by making a loan recently to global sports media technology firm Deltatre to help it to refinance a debt and support its buyout of a software company. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. Sberbank CEO Herman Gref on December 11 confirmed rumours that the giant Russian banking group is considering renaming itself by keeping the word “bank” out of the group name though it would still have the word in the name of its purely financial unit. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. About 400,000 Russians have finished or are currently taking five-month free online business courses for small enterprises and would-be entrepreneurs that are co-run and co-sponsored by Russia’s biggest lender Sberbank and Google. Continue Reading
By Andrei Skvarsky. London-based debt investor Permira Debt Managers (PDM) is currently making a debt refinancing loan to DL Software, a French software publisher for small and medium-sized businesses. Continue Reading