By Andrei Skvarsky. The World Bank has proposed a formula for avoiding a “middle-income trap”, an economic growth slowdown that, according to a common but disputed theory, typically hits a country after it has achieved a middle-income level and bars it from moving on to high-income status. Use of a two-component remedy – investment plus… Continue Reading
Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF appoints Fahad Al-Saif as head of investment strategy
Fahad Al-Saif, head of the global capital finance division of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, has been vested with an additional role as head of PIF’s investment strategy and economic insights division. Al-Saif’s new appointment took immediate effect on July 23, according to a statement from PIF. Continue Reading
Saudi, Chinese financial sectors preparing $50bn project
By Andrei Skvarsky. Saudi Arabia’s PIF sovereign wealth fund has signed memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with five major Chinese banks and China’s export and credit insurance agency in laying the basis for a project of up to $50bn to involve debt and equity transactions. The project would consist of deals addressing “areas such as two-way… Continue Reading
Saudi Arabia tells investors Tabuk region needs $13.3bn
By Andrei Skvarsky. A large-scale development programme launched by Saudi Arabia for its Tabuk region offers investment opportunities estimated at $13.3bn, the country’s investment minister said. Investment projects for Tabuk run through a range of sectors, including agriculture, renewable energy, petrochemicals, education and biotechnology, Saudi English-language daily Arab News cited Khalid Al-Falih as telling a… Continue Reading
UAE’s ADCB to set up Islamic banking hub for Central Asia
By Andrei Skvarsky. Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank is planning to boost the role of its Kazakhstan subsidiary Al Hilal Islamic Bank by making it a hub for corporate Islamic banking services for the whole of Central Asia in stepping up what ADCB calls its “strategic presence” in the region. Concurrently, ADCB will phase out retail… Continue Reading
Uzbekistan gold producer gets ‘BB-’ rating with ‘stable’ outlook from S&P
By Andrei Skvarsky. S&P Global Ratings has assigned a long-term rating of ‘BB- ‘ with a ‘stable’ outlook to Uzbekistan’s Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Company (NMMC), the world’s fourth-largest gold producer. This is the first rating obtained by the state-owned company from the New York City-based agency, NMMC said in a statement. One component of… Continue Reading
World Bank lending Egypt $700m to strengthen economy, facilitate green transition
By Andrei Skvarsky. The World Bank has approved a loan of $700m for Egypt as part of a three-year $6bn programme to make the country’s economy more efficient and resilient, give a bigger role to the private sector and facilitate green transition. The loan, one of the international institution’s “development policy financing (DPF)” instruments, is,… Continue Reading
Jersey’s Crestbridge makes top hires for compliance, client, HR services
Jersey-based Crestbridge Family Office Services has made top-tier hires for its compliance, client and human resources services. Simon Logan, who has served at Jersey’s financial sector regulator and the island’s tax office, was recruited as head of risk and compliance, according to information on Crestbridge’s website and a statement by the Channel Eye news service.… Continue Reading
Oak Group hires chief operating officer, promotes 11 pct of staff
By Andrei Skvarsky. Channel Islands-based financial services company Oak Group has hired a new chief operating officer and promoted 11 per cent of its staff, about half of them compliance specialists. The work record of David Ainger, the new COO, includes jobs at information technology services companies Logica and Accenture. A statement from Oak credited… Continue Reading
Guernsey Finance appoints rep for northern England
Guernsey Finance, a promotional agency for the financial services industry of Britain’s self-governing dependency of Guernsey, has hired brand marketing specialist Rowan Stone for its newly established position of representative for northern England. Stone will focus on business development and address issues of investment funds, private wealth, insurance and pensions. He “has worked with international… Continue Reading
RenCap expects Russia’s GDP to grow 2.7 pct YoY in 2024
By Andrei Skvarsky. Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital expects Russia to end 2024 with 2.7 per cent year-on-year economic growth, 5.7 per cent annual inflation and a relatively stable rouble, the institution’s chief economist has said. The rouble, which stands at around 90 to the U.S. dollar today, is likely to edge down to about… Continue Reading
Abu Dhabi simplifying licensing for expat businesses
By Andrei Skvarsky. Abu Dhabi has launched an initiative to simplify its registration rules for expat businesses by replacing the current range of licence types with a single standard type, the Unified Economic Licence, in a measure seen as instrumental for the emirate’s free zones. Abu Dhabi’s five free zones, which represent a variety of… Continue Reading
J.P. Morgan’s Liink system to be used by Australia’s CBA to test anti-scam tech
By Andrei Skvarsky. Australia’s Commonwealth Bank (CBA or CommBank) has announced it will test an anti-scam and mistake-proofing technology internationally in a pilot project via Liink, a blockchain-based system developed by J.P. Morgan, after the domestic use of the tech helped save “millions of dollars” for CBA clients. Liink is a global network for private… Continue Reading
ANZ warns of payment scams after Australians lost nearly $100m in 2023
By Andrei Skvarsky. Australia’s ANZ bank issued a warning last week about so-called payment redirection scams, a form of fraud that has cost Australians tens of millions of dollars lost to computer hackers who rerouted the money via fake bills. In 2023 Australians had AU$91.6m (equivalent to the amount in U.S. dollars that year) stolen… Continue Reading
Australia’s ANZ selling remaining stake in Malaysia’s AmBank
By Andrei Skvarsky. ANZ, one of Australia’s largest banks, has agreed to sell its remaining 5.2 per cent stake in AmBank, one of the biggest lenders in Malaysia. ANZ would be paid 4.10 Malaysian ringgit ($0.87) per share in the deal, the Australian bank said in a statement. The upcoming sale, to be completed on… Continue Reading
Fitch ups major Australian banks’ ratings in evaluating capacity to deal with default risks
By Andrei Skvarsky. Fitch Ratings has given Australia’s five largest banks rating upgrades in assessing their capacity to keep their senior creditors protected if the lenders defaulted on their debt. The long-term issuer default rating (IDR) was raised by one notch for each of the five banks – to A+ for Macquarie Bank and to… Continue Reading
Dubai gets nearly $10bn as FDI in 2023
By Andrei Skvarsky. Dubai received $9.77bn in 2023 as foreign direct investment (FDI), the emirate’s Department of Economy and Tourism said. The United States was the source of the largest single proportion – one-fifth – of the amount. British investments made up the second-biggest share, about 9 per cent. India was third with an input of… Continue Reading
Macquarie Capital hires ex-Credit Suisse, ex-UBS banker as head of greater China
Macquarie Capital, the advisory and investing arm of financial services group Macquarie, has hired Honggui Li, a former banker at Credit Suisse and UBS, as head of greater China. Li has almost 25 years’ experience of business in greater China, according to a statement from Macquarie, a company headquartered in Sydney. He was head of… Continue Reading
Macquarie launches active large-growth ETF on NYSE Arca
By Andrei Skvarsky. Macquarie, a global financial services group, has launched an active large-growth exchange-traded fund (ETF), which began trading on the NYSE Arca exchange in New York on May 15. The Macquarie Focused Large Growth ETF (LRGG ETF) is the fourth active ETF of Macquarie Asset Management, a division of the Sydney-headquartered group. The… Continue Reading
Prop trader The Trading Pit reports two senior departures
By Andrei Skvarsky. Liechtenstein-based financial boutique The Trading Pit, which is part of Estonian private equity fintech Pinorena Capital and specialises in proprietary trading (investing its own capital rather that living off client commissions or fees), has announced top-tier staff departures. Thomas Heyden has resigned as chief executive of The Trading Pit’s Liechtenstein division and… Continue Reading
Janus Henderson buying out Europe-focused ETF provider Tabula
By Andrei Skvarsky. Global asset manager Janus Henderson will acquire Europe-focused exchange-traded fund (ETF) provider Tabula Investment Management, the two companies have announced. Tabula’s arm Tabula Capital is not part of the buyout and will remain a separate entity, Tabula and Janus Henderson said in a joint statement. Janus Henderson expects that, owing to the… Continue Reading
Routing FDI into UK through Guernsey could reverse downward trend – financier
By Andrei Skvarsky. A “unique” relationship to the United Kingdom makes Guernsey, a UK dependency and an international financial centre, an effective channel for foreign direct investment (FDI) into the UK, which is “ever more vital” for its economy but declining, according to a Guernsey-based financier. Guernsey “channels investment into the UK that other international… Continue Reading
AI-powered investment fund launched by UK’s Sanctum
By Andrei Skvarsky. Sanctum, an investment company headquartered in London, has launched an artificial intelligence-powered investment fund. The Financial Science Holdings Limited (FSHL) fund, which is based in Britain’s dependency of Guernsey, uses an algorithmic engine to select undervalued but potentially profitable securities by going through a wide range of data, Guernsey Finance, a British… Continue Reading
Permira fund to acquire majority stake in anti-fraud firm BioCatch
By Andrei Skvarsky. One of the funds of global private equity firm Permira has pledged to acquire a majority stake in BioCatch, an Israeli digital fraud and money laundering detection company credited with having saved banks and bank customers from losses exceeding $3.5bn. The size of the stake has not been disclosed. The bulk of… Continue Reading
Standard Chartered joins Visa payment shortcuts network
By Andrei Skvarsky. Standard Chartered has joined Visa B2B Connect, a cross-border payments network for businesses that the Visa corporation, which runs the system, says can cut settlement times to one or two days from “potentially weeks”. So far Standard Chartered Singapore is the only division of the London-based bank to have joined Visa B2B… Continue Reading
Sub-Saharan Africa home to 75 pct of world’s mobile payment app accounts – GSMA
By Andrei Skvarsky. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to almost three-quarters of the world’s mobile payment application accounts, the GSMA, a global association of mobile operators and mobile-related businesses said. Between 2013 and 2022, payments via mobile apps brought about an increase of more than $150bn or 3.7 per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa’s combined gross domestic… Continue Reading
Standard Chartered unit makes ‘strategic’ investment in sharia-compliant fintech
By Andrei Skvarsky. Multinational bank Standard Chartered’s innovation-focused investment unit SC Ventures has made what it called a “strategic” investment in British sharia-compliant financial technology company Algbra. Statements from SC Ventures and Algbra that announced the investment did not provide any details or disclose the terms of the deal. But both statements quoted Algbra chief… Continue Reading
IBKR brokerage to open office in Dubai
By Andrei Skvarsky. U.S.-based electronic financial brokerage Interactive Brokers (IBKR) is planning to open an office in Dubai in a bid to expand its global network to the Middle East, Abu Dhabi-based English-language daily The National said, citing an IBKR spokesperson. The National also quoted an independent source as saying, with reference to an email… Continue Reading
Saudi banks’ net foreign assets at $15.84bn by February – central bank
By Andrei Skvarsky. The net foreign assets of Saudi Arabia’s commercial banks stood at 59.41bn riyals ($15.84bn) by February 2024, a Saudi newspaper said on April 11, citing the country’s central bank (SAMA). The Saudi banks’ gross foreign assets grew 22 per cent year on year by February, reaching $92.7bn, but their foreign liabilities rocketed… Continue Reading