By Nicholas Larsen, International Banker   Depending on one’s location, the evening of April 19 or the early hours of April 20 saw the Bitcoin block complete its eagerly anticipated reward halving, thus triggering a programmed cut in the rewards earned by the network’s miners. One of crypto’s most momentous and eagerly anticipated events, the halving finally came to pass amid burgeoning market bullishness that saw its price climb to uncharted territory above $73,500 just a month earlier. And with the landmark approval of spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in January by US regulators, as we ..read more

By Joseph Moss, International Banker   “Failure to follow the workplace excellence expectations applicable to your role within two weeks of the date of this notification may result in further disciplinary action,” warned the Bank of America (BofA) in a letter sent out to an employee in January, as seen by the Financial Times. The letter was one of many issued to staff who, in the bank’s assessment, were not showing up to the office frequently enough, instead choosing to work from home. Banks across the board are seeking to tighten physical-attendance regulations dramatically. But with the ..read more

By Valerie Hernandez, International Banker   After taking office on December 10, President Javier Gerardo Milei wasted no time in reversing the plan of the previous administration under Alberto Fernández to take Argentina into the powerful BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) economic group of rising emerging economies, informing the bloc’s leaders less than three weeks later that it was not an “opportune” moment for Argentina to become a full member. With the rabidly pro-Western Milei now at Argentina’s helm, much of the goodwill that Buenos Aires had been steadily amass ..read more

By Hilary Schmidt, International Banker   Increasingly proving to be among the most innovative technologies within the cryptocurrency sector, decentralised finance (DeFi) is quickly establishing itself as a new paradigm for global finance. And with trillions of dollars’ worth of transactions already settled through a multitude of applications that are accessible to anyone online, DeFi technology has a bright and disruptive future—that is, if it can remain on the right side of an increasingly stringent regulatory regime. DeFi leverages distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) to offer on-cha ..read more

By Monica Johnson, International Banker   According to recent figures published by the UK Government’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the United Kingdom’s 2022-23 cost-of-living crisis triggered the steepest rise in 30 years in the number of UK citizens falling into “absolute poverty” (defined as living in a household with an income below 60 percent of the median household income in 2010-11, adjusted for inflation). Even with rising costs of necessities such as food and energy proving hugely painful for most Britons and often drastic measures still having to be taken to save enou ..read more

By Valerie Hernandez, International Banker   On February 6, Fitch Ratings downgraded Bolivia’s Long-Term Foreign Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to ‘CCC’ from ‘B-‘. This was perhaps not surprising given that the South American country’s international reserves have declined in recent years, reaching critical levels in 2024 and representing a profound risk to the nation’s macroeconomic stability. With a distinctly unfavourable balance-of-payments position and a questionable capacity for servicing its considerable outstanding debt, Bolivia faces serious threats to its long-term economic ..read more

By Joseph Moss, International Banker   On March 17, Japan’s central bank, the Bank of Japan (BoJ), raised its benchmark short-term interest rate for the first time in 17 years. With a rise to 0–0.1 percent from -0.1 percent, the BoJ also finally ended its eight-year negative-interest-rate policy—the last to do so among the world’s major economies—and abolished its controversial yield-curve control policy, which had capped long-term sovereign bond yields at 1 percent. The moves have raised hopes that a sense of “normalcy” may soon return to Japan’s economy after more than 30 years of econo ..read more

By Michelle Nicole Diamond, Partner, and Imogen Makin, Counsel, WilmerHale   #MeToo is still moving across the pond. On March 8, 2024, the House of Commons Treasury Committee published a report entitled “Sexism in the City” (referenced as “Report” in this article), which found that the financial-services sector had made little progress in removing the systemic barriers faced by women in the workplace or the prevalence of sexual harassment. The Report has called on the government, regulators and financial firms to confront the issues contributing to gender inequality. It came less than a m ..read more

By Joseph Moss, International Banker   It is an increasingly sophisticated game. As attackers evolve with successively more fiendish digital schemes, defenders respond by upping their safeguards to resolutely protect their most valuable digital assets—but not always with absolute success. And with data now the undisputed lifeblood of digitally aligned organisations, protecting the integrity and privacy of this hugely valuable resource at all costs means that cybersecurity is now invariably being propelled to the top of the agendas of corporate, investment, regulatory and governmental real ..read more

By Alexander Jones, International Banker   As businesses continue to undergo digital transformations at a breathless pace, the sheer number of attack surfaces—that is, the sum of the points within organisations’ software environments that unauthorised and potentially malicious users can exploit—is skyrocketing, which, in turn, is raising the likelihood of cyberattacks, data breaches and other security risks occurring. As such, cybersecurity stands among the highest priorities for enterprises globally in 2024 as security teams battle to resolve the breadth and depth of these risks on a sus ..read more