BNY Mellon’s Peter Hazou and Marc Librizzi discuss the introduction of social technology into the workplace.

Favourable valuations are tempting investors back to the region, writes Mark Dunne.

The credit crunch has led to a steep drop in volume on many western derivatives market, and to calls for tougher regulation. But in the EMEA region, derivatives markets are just getting going, writes Liz Salecka.
 

emeafinance’s inaugural African banking awards come at a very exciting time for African banks, as banks raise large amounts of capital on domestic and foreign equity capital markets, and use it to finance aggressive regional expansion plans.

As new players enter the Kuwaiti banking market and the central bank tightens lending rules, existing domestic players are increasingly
looking abroad, writes Clare Dunkley.

Boosted by a wave of reforms and foreign investment, Turkish banks are confident that they can weather the current climate of slowing growth and rising interest rates and resume their rapid growth. Of course, there will be winners and losers. And privatisation is still to come, writes Bernard Kennedy in Ankara.

Despite the collapse of the ruling coalition, investors are hopeful the Hungarian government can stick to its fiscal austerity plans and weather the global credit crunch, writes Kester Eddy in Budapest.

Konrad Engber discusses the German bank’s new office in Côte d’Ivoire.

Slovenian white goods manufacturer calls on support of domestic banks.

Syndicated facility from 17 banks will help UAE-based telecoms company finance acquisition of Maroc Telecom.

Russian bank’s syndication succeeds despite political climate.

Financial-services technology network Swift aims to open an office in Ghana this year, its CEO for Europe, the Middle East and Africa tells EMEA Finance.

Speaking at last week's Swift Business Forum in London, Alain Raes highlighted rapid growth in African economies and financial markets, which calls for Swift to develop a greater presence on the ground.

"If you want to start supporting mission-critical local-market infrastructures like payment processes, you need to start proposing the sort of local support that can react in a minute if something is happening," he says. "If we want to become more a part of domestic markets, it's likely we'll have to invest further in local resources and support."