IFR Special Reports

IFR IMF/World Bank Report 2014

Playground rules - The collaborative effort of European governments and regulators is akin to children rushing around the school playground with a football. Enthusiasm and no lack of skill are undermined by issues of translation and the fierce desire of all to score the winning goal.

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Stories in Special Report

The vanquished

Bond market liquidity has collapsed in the past five years. Despite pockets of activity, there are fears that legislation has made the issue worse rather than better.

Many tongues of the Holy Grail

Securitisation is being held up as a Holy Grail of SME financing, but it is not going to happen until regulators and central banks talk the same language.

Path of least resistance

The expected divergence between the Fed and the ECB, with the former entering its tightening cycle as the latter considers further loosening, creates an interesting backdrop for 2015. However markets respond, issuers will seek out the best opportunities like water finding cracks in a stone, with investor appetite for SSA paper as always insatiable.

What lies beneath

At the height of the financial crisis it seemed a comprehensive rethink of the financial system was inevitable. It was not only the public, goaded on by an outraged press, that assumed such an outcome was unavoidable, but bankers themselves. Five years on and there is no evidence of any new paradigm in banking. But there are new hybrid instruments, such as CoCos, that regulators hope will make the sector a safer place.

Risky business

Western regulators have been cobbling together strategies to prevent a repeat disaster of the global financial crisis, setting out new demands on the banking sector. The success of such schemes is questionable, not least in Europe, where rules are killing off profitable business and driving borrowers into the arms of shadow lending institutions.

Tints and hues

The eurozone today is far more nuanced as the view from and of Lisbon, Dublin, and Madrid is, if not golden, then at least a lot less bleak, but France gives rise to concern.

Investors tread in explorers’ footsteps

After being hammered in 2013, emerging markets have seen investor appetite slip through their fingers and land on less familiar but excitable frontier markets. The latter’s fan base, a cross-section ranging from risk-loving individuals to conservative wealth funds, expects them to shine again in the year ahead.

Fight returns as fright dwindles

Asia’s debt capital markets, both offshore and onshore, have experienced explosive growth in the past decade, with the pace picking up since the global financial crisis ushered in an era of unprecedented global easy money.

Back down to earth

Expectations of Narendra Modi soared into the stratosphere when he gained power – but was the hype that he will pilot radical reforms justified?

Hanging on

Latin America’s capital markets have returned to investors’ sweet side and are set for another banner year as burgeoning debt markets offset sluggish gains in equity.

Finding the right balance

How has the ratings game changed since the global financial crisis? Are the business models different? Has consumption of ratings changed? Have regulatory changes around ratings had any impact?

Smoke and glimmers

After the tapering-driven fire sale of emerging market assets in 2013, EM sentiment has now improved and many investors admit that positive economic fundamentals had been overlooked last year. But some previously held assumptions need a rethink and the risks must be carefully managed.

The tide is high

A late summer rush into Sub-Saharan African bonds has kept the spotlight on the region’s high growth rates, as investors seek out rare opportunities for high yields.

Special Report

Special Report

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