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A customs revamp is a welcome change, but logistics and transit bottlenecks still stifle African trade.
To curb revenue and income losses and accelerate trade across 50 member states, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat partnered with Nigeria’s Bergmans Security Consultants and Supplies Ltd. in a $3.1 billion deal to roll out a unified continent-wide customs system.
The project aims to digitize customs processes, streamline cross-border procedures, and provide real-time cargo tracking, with the goal of reducing corruption, revenue leakage, and trade misinvoicing.
The initiative could be “potentially very significant,” Phyllis Wakiaga, a Kenyan lawyer and former Kenya Association of Manufacturers CEO, told Global Finance in an email. “One of the biggest barriers to intra-African trade is the friction businesses face at borders through slow clearance, duplicated documentation, and inconsistent customs procedures.”
Bergmans, based in Abuja, Nigeria, intends to help AfCFTA achieve its goal of doubling intra-African trade by 2035. However, fundamental trading challenges, such as payments, persist across the continent.
AfCFTA did not respond to requests for comment.
Currently, companies often have to route transactions through hard currencies and third-party intermediaries. As a result, high costs will remain even if customs procedures improve, Wakiaga said.
The 2022 launch of the Pan-African Payments and Settlement System (PAPSS) could potentially unlock the anticipated benefits of AfCFTA, she added. However, rollout is slow. As of 2025, the network only connects 19 countries so far (the African Union has 55 member states).
Jacqueléne Coetzer, founder and CEO of a pan-African business advisory and trade firm, described to Global Finance just how convoluted transporting cargo across the continent by land, sea, and air can be. Goods, she said, are frequently routed through South Africa, Europe, or the Middle East—adding significant transit time and cost.
Furthermore, political will remains inconsistent, as individual governments often resort to protectionist measures and informal barriers to shield domestic industries.
Ultimately, while modernizing customs creates an essential foundation, Coetzer said that it’s not a complete solution. Without parallel investments in logistics, payment systems, standardized regulations, and physical infrastructure, a streamlined customs framework will fall short.
“A perfectly digitized customs declaration does not help much if the truck cannot cross the border efficiently because the road is inadequate, or if the cargo then spends days waiting for space at a congested port,” she said.
AfCFTA took effect in January 2021, aiming to counter global isolationism through cross-border cooperation. Since then, the picture has shifted somewhat. Africa’s population has grown to roughly 1.6 billion people as of 2026. That’s up from 1.2 billion when the agreement was first signed.
On intra-African trade, the AfCFTA-era numbers show real but modest progress. Intra-African trade hit about $220.3 billion in 2024 and roughly $213.8 billion in 2025. African Export–Import Bank, or Afreximbank, projects it will reach $230 billion in 2026.
But, as Coetzer explained, getting customs right is only part of the challenge. If logistics, payments, infrastructure, standards, production capacity, and political implementation remain unresolved, it will simply create a faster system for moving goods through borders that still cannot move enough goods efficiently.
“The real objective should therefore be much more ambitious,” she added. “AfCFTA needs to build an integrated continental trading system, not simply a continental customs system.”
Anthony Noto covers corporate finance and private credit. Contact him at anoto@gfmag.com
John Njiraini and Charles Wachira contributed to this report.
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BP is going back into Venezuela.
The agreement signed in Caracas on Thursday gives the company operatorship of Loran phase two, an offshore gas project holding more than four trillion cubic feet of proven gas resources, with Abu Dhabi’s XRG, Qatar’s UCC Oil and Gas Holding taking equal stakes beside it.
It is the clearest signal yet that the opening of Venezuela’s energy industry to foreign capital, underway since Maduro’s removal, is gathering pace.
All three companies will hold equal working interests, with BP as operator, and the licence remains subject to regulatory approvals.
PDVSA Gas, the state producer’s gas arm, transferred part of its interest to XRG, the international investment vehicle of Abu Dhabi’s ADNOC. For both XRG and UCC, a unit of the Qatari conglomerate of the same name, this marks a first entry into Venezuela.
The field itself is shared as Loran forms the Venezuelan portion of the Loran-Manatee accumulation, which straddles the maritime boundary with Trinidad and Tobago and holds roughly 10 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas in total.
Shell won the licence for the first phase in June and is separately developing Manatee on the Trinidadian side, where first gas is expected next year.
BP says both Venezuelan phases will now be developed in parallel and signed a further memorandum of understanding covering exploration at the Carúpano East Block.
The agreements were concluded during a visit to Caracas by CEO Meg O’Neill and David Campbell, BP’s senior vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean.
The licences are the product of a bargain struck with Washington.
After Maduro was seized by US forces in January, interim president Delcy Rodríguez rewrote the country’s energy law at the Trump administration’s urging, opening the world’s largest proven oil reserves to foreign firms.
In return, the US relaxed sanctions that had frozen most Western investment, including the licences it revoked from BP, Shell and Chevron in 2025.
Eni, Repsol and Shell have all signed since.
The awards process stalled after the earthquakes of 24 June, which killed more than 6,300 people, and resumed only on Thursday, when the three Loran permits were issued and the agreements signed.
“I have a special interest in gas to promote national development,” Rodríguez said at the ceremony, which was broadcast on state television.
BP is not a newcomer as it held a licence for the Cocuina field from 2024, before Washington withdrew its permission to use it.
In 2012, on the day after Mark Walter and his partners bought the Dodgers, I sat next to Walter in a conference room. To the sports fan, Walter was virtually anonymous: a super rich guy who had made his money running investment and insurance companies.
Walter’s purchase valued the Dodgers and its related assets at a then-record $2.15 billion. That value stunned the sports world. Mark Cuban had bowed out of the bidding, believing the Dodgers were not worth even $1 billion.
I asked Walter why he believed it made business sense to pay three times as much as any major league team had sold for.
“I think you have a few moments in life where you have the opportunity to own an asset and really be a custodian of something that should be multigenerational and iconic,” he said then. “I understand it’s a lot of money. But it’s not as if you can go buy another one tomorrow. … We hope we never, ever are going to sell it.”
That was essentially the point that someone who travels within the inner circles of pro sports made to me Wednesday morning, as news broke that Walter had sold the Lakers to Bob Iger, the former Disney chief, and Joshua Kushner.
The Steinbrenner family has owned the New York Yankees for 53 years. Jerry Jones has owned the Dallas Cowboys for 37 years. The Buss family owned the Lakers for 46 years.
These trophy assets are few and far between. Walter had agreed to sell the Lakers after less than one year of ownership — and not through a comprehensive bidding process, but to an inquiring caller during the weekend?
“This has more red flags than a May Day parade,” an industry insider said, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize his professional relationships.
The deal, which valued the Lakers at $12.5 billion, was motivated by the spiraling price for an NBA expansion team in Las Vegas, according to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne. After all, if Iger and Kushner might have to pay $10 billion for a startup team, why not call and see if Walter might accept a bit more for one of the marquee franchises in American sports?
“It was suggested to us that maybe Mark Walter would be interested in selling his stake in the Lakers,” Iger told the California Post.
“I never knew that. He never said that to me,” Kasten said. “I think he was surprised by it. That’s what he has expressed to me. Mark had no plan to do this. This just came up, and he thought about it and said yes.”
Mark Walter acknowledges a fan before a game against the Cubs in Chicago this month.
(Melissa Tamez / Associated Press)
Only he can say for sure, but his companies are under federal investigation for failing to disclose and properly account for billions of dollars of loans among related entities. Bloomberg reported Wednesday that Walter’s holding company is trying to raise money that could help pay off or at least pay down those loans, and the Financial Times reported that company assets could be sold or restructured.
No charges have been filed, and investigations can conclude without charges. No allegations of wrongdoing have been made against Walter.
Among the investment firms Walter’s holding company approached about “deals to raise cash,” according to Bloomberg: the asset management firm owned by New York Mets owner Steve Cohen.
Cohen’s firm passed, according to the Financial Times.
When Walter and his partners bought the Dodgers, the runners-up: the bid team of Cohen and Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong.
“No, that never came up. And Mark and I discussed it,” Kasten said. “So, no, we don’t have any reason to think that. I certainly have no reason to think that.”
“It means nothing for the Dodgers,” someone who speaks regularly with Walter said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “He owned them long before the Lakers and will own them long after.”
Shohei Ohtani has an out clause in his contract if Mark Walter sells the team.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Shohei Ohtani’s 10-year, $700-million contract with the Dodgers includes an unusual escape clause: If Walter is no longer the controlling owner, or if Andrew Friedman is no longer running the Dodgers’ baseball operations department, Ohtani can opt out of the contract.
Way too soon to tell. If major league owners get their way in collective bargaining, the proposed salary cap would mean Ohtani at $70 million could eat up just about one-third of any team’s payroll. And, in his third year with the Dodgers, he has yet to complete a full season as a pitcher, and a left knee in which manager Dave Roberts says Ohtani suffers from “wear and tear” could make him less of a two-way player as the contract winds down.
On the other hand, playing salary might be less of an issue for him than for any other player in baseball. Ohtani is making more than his annual salary from sponsorships and endorsements — an estimated $125 million this year — and he famously deferred $68 million of each year’s salary so the Dodgers could spend more freely on players that could help him and the team win. After six losing years with the Angels and two World Series championships in two years with the Dodgers, a losing team might not entice Ohtani, no matter how much room it might have under a proposed cap.
Disney chairman Michael Eisner, left, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, NHL chairman Bruce McNall and Mighty Ducks chairman Jack Lindquist blow duck calls announcing the name of the team in 1993.
(Doug Pizac / Associated Press)
Disney dressed the Angels in uniforms derided by one player as “pinstripe pajamas,” put cheerleaders on the dugout roof and installed a loud “countdown to first pitch.” This all seemed awful at the time but, given the plagues of in-game hosts and teams sporting jerseys in colors far beyond home white and road gray, perhaps Disney was just ahead of its time. And, for the first few years of the franchise, Mighty Ducks gear was some of the hottest merchandise in American sports.
Ultimately, Disney wanted the Angels and Mighty Ducks to launch an “ESPN West” regional sports channel. When that channel collapsed, Disney no longer needed the teams and eventually sold them. The Angels were such a minimal part of Disney’s portfolio that then-chief executive Michael Eisner showed up in the clubhouse and the players had no idea who he was.
Angels players wave to fans during the World Series title parade in Anaheim in 2002.
(Jean-Marc Bouju / Associated Press)
Disney. The company hired an investment banker to sell the team in the final month before the Angels won the 2002 World Series and agreed to sell to Arte Moreno in the first month of the following season.
“I think it was opportunistic and he found something that made sense to him,” Kasten said. “Mark’s a very sensible guy. But that’s really the only way I can explain it.
“You’ll have to talk to Mark about a more in-depth explanation, and good luck.”
Times staff writer Maddie Lee contributed to this report.
Originally published in Spanish on Asdrúbal’s personal Substack
In the weeks following the June 24 earthquake, numerous figures regarding the tragedy’s cost have circulated. The World Bank estimated direct physical damages at $19.6 billion, equivalent to nearly 17% of Venezuela’s GDP. These figures help gauge the magnitude of the disaster, but from an economic perspective, they fall short. Confusing damages with economic costs leads to flawed diagnoses and, often, to poor public policy decisions. Furthermore, it is also worth reviewing the methodology behind these measurements, as in many cases the magnitude of the tragedy is being overstated.
The economy doesn’t just lose when a building is destroyed. It loses when that building stops producing, when a company stops selling, when a port stops moving goods, or when thousands of workers halt their activities. The economic cost of a disaster is not measured by the value of what disappeared, but by the income that ceases to be generated while that productive capacity remains out of service. This is what we economists call distinguishing between the stock and the flow.
That is precisely the exercise we are attempting to carry out for La Guaira.
La Guaira accounts for approximately 6.2% of national transactions (based on past studies we have conducted on transactions in Venezuela), which translates to an economic activity of around $6.9 billion annually out of an estimated GDP of $111.3 billion. However, reducing the state’s importance to that percentage would be a mistake. Its true weight lies in the fact that it concentrates over 40% of the national logistics and transportation sector, thanks to the Port of La Guaira and the Maiquetía International Airport. Both constitute the country’s main entry and exit points for goods and passengers. When that hub stops operating, the impact is quickly transmitted to the rest of the economy.
The first commercial census reveals that barely 1,752 establishments remain operational out of the nearly 7,000 businesses existing before the earthquake.
Physical damages in the state likely range between $4 billion and $6 billion. That is, between 60% and 90% of La Guaira’s annual output. That proportion illustrates the magnitude of the asset shock, but it still doesn’t answer the central question: how much did the state stop producing as a result of the earthquake?
To approach that answer, we must observe how the economy functioned in the weeks following the quake. The port remained completely paralyzed for 28 days and only reopened gradually for cargo operations. The Maiquetía airport will recover its normal operations by the end of this year at best, with a partial opening in August. For nearly eight weeks, the two assets that sustain much of the state’s economic activity operated at a minimal fraction of their capacity.
Added to this disruption was the collapse of the business fabric. The first commercial census reveals that barely 1,752 establishments remain operational out of the nearly 7,000 businesses existing before the earthquake. In other words, three out of four companies ceased to function. In parishes like Caraballeda, Macuto, and Catia La Mar, around 40% of commerce suffered significant damage, and tourism (one of the state’s main economic activities) practically vanished for the entire season.
With these elements, it is possible to build a reasonable estimate of the lost flow of economic activity. Our central scenario points to a contraction of nearly 35% of La Guaira’s GDP during 2026, with a year-on-year drop of between 55% and 70% during the third quarter, which represents the peak of activity disruption. The spending associated with reconstruction, the gradual recovery of the port and airport, and emergency credit lines will prevent an even deeper contraction, but they will hardly change the overall diagnosis.
Translated into numbers, La Guaira is expected to lose out on generating around $2.4 billion in economic activity during 2026 compared to the pre-earthquake scenario. That is, perhaps, the best approximation of the disaster’s direct economic cost for the state during its first year. It is a loss equivalent to more than a third of its annual economy, and quite distinct from the cost of rebuilding the destroyed assets.
The earthquake could cost Venezuela between three and four points of growth during 2026 compared to the pre-disaster baseline.
However, even that estimate remains conservative because the state does not operate in isolation. The temporary closure of the country’s main logistics hub drove up transportation costs, forced operations to be diverted to Valencia, Barcelona, and Maracaibo, increased delivery times, caused congestion in alternative ports, and disrupted supply chains in the central region of the country. These indirect effects explain why the national impact ends up being considerably larger than the mere loss of La Guaira’s output.
Our estimate is that the drop in the state’s activity subtracts approximately 2.2 percentage points from Venezuela’s GDP growth due to direct effects. When factoring in the deterioration of the logistics sector and the spillover effects on commerce, manufacturing, and consumption, the earthquake could cost Venezuela between three and four points of growth during 2026 compared to the pre-disaster baseline.
This difference between physical damage and economic cost is not just a methodological detail. It is a fundamental distinction for designing the reconstruction. If the objective is limited to replacing buildings and infrastructure, the country may recover part of the lost assets. But if the priority is to restore La Guaira’s productive capacity as soon as possible, then investment decisions must change. Reconstruction must focus first on the port, the airport, road connectivity, and financing the thousands of small businesses that make up the state’s economic fabric. Every week these activities remain partially paralyzed, the economic cost of the disaster will continue to rise.
During 2027, we will likely see very high growth rates in La Guaira as a result of the reconstruction process and the low baseline left by 2026. It would be a mistake to interpret these figures as a full recovery. Recovering a capital stock equivalent to between 60% and 90% of the state’s annual output will require several years of sustained investment, institutional stability, and access to financing. Yet, every crisis also opens an opportunity to do things better. La Guaira can be rebuilt by replicating the vulnerabilities of the past, or it can become the starting point for a more modern and efficient logistics infrastructure.
If investments are properly targeted, if financing reaches the businesses that sustain the productive fabric, and if reconstruction manages to become a shared project among the public sector, the private sector, and international cooperation, the state will not only recover what was lost: it can emerge stronger. In the end, true success won’t be returning to where we were before the earthquake, but leveraging this tragedy to build a logistics platform capable of driving Venezuela’s growth for decades to come.
The true indicator of success will not be next year’s growth rate, but the speed at which La Guaira regains its role as Venezuela’s premier logistics platform.
NATALIE Imbruglia has candidly admitted she “ran out of money” after finding fame on Aussie soap Neighbours – and was forced to bunk in a basement.
The actress and singer, who played Beth Brennan in the hit series from 1992 to 1994, with a brief comeback in 2022, fell on hard times shortly after leaving Ramsay Street.
The Neighbours legend, who later went on to find fame in the music industry, told the Davina McCall Begin Again podcast she simply “ran out of money”.
Now 51, Natalie recalled trying to bag further acting jobs after moving to the UK, yet admitted “things didn’t fall into my lap”.
She told host Davina: “I went to England and I couldn’t get a visa to work as an actress and thats when they really cracked down on Neighbours stars getting English actors’ roles.
“And that was a hard time because I ran out of money.
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“For a few years I was very famous from Neighbours and was doing appearances and appearing in clubs and signing autographs, and just getting wads of cash in envelopes and living like that.
“But that was the first time in my life where everything didn’t fall in my lap and so I just partied – but then the money ran out”.
The Torn hitmaker, who was in her Twenties at the time, talked of penning her first album and said: “I had run out of money and was living in the basement of someone’s house in Chelsea.
“Which was weird because I had no money and I am in Chelsea in this big mansion but I was just in the basement”.
Natalie admitted meditation and “a lot of conversations with God” had seen her through.
She released her debut album, Left of the Middle, in 1997.
It was the same year in which she released debut single Torn.
Previously, Natalie has spoken about her struggle to be taken seriously as a singer and said: “There was a lot of stigma attached to being in a soap. I thought I’d blown any chance of making a serious record because I had been in Neighbours.
“I turned down two record deals because they were very poppy. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do but I knew I didn’t want to be manipulated. I may not have had a direction, but I wasn’t stupid.
“My profile dropped off and so did my bank balance, and that was the best thing that ever happened to me.
“I was forced to struggle, which is a normal, healthy part of growing up. I hadn’t gone through that.”
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The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation went to court in New York on Wednesday to shut down Truth API, a subscription launched this month by Trump Media and Technology Group, the Nasdaq-listed company behind Truth Social.
The subscription provides privileged access to US President Donald Trump’s social media posts straight to trading firms, sending them fractions of a second before they appear on the public timeline, which is enough time for high-frequency algorithms to execute thousands of orders before others process the information.
Contracts run from about $60,000 (€52,000) to $100,000 (€86,600) a month and cover the platform’s 10 most-followed accounts, among them US President Donald Trump, the White House itself, US Vice President JD Vance, FBI Director Kash Patel and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
More than 10 customers have signed up, mostly high-frequency trading firms, according to company executives.
Interim CEO Kevin McGurn told an earnings call on Monday that subscribers receive news “fractionally faster” than everyone else, having earlier pitched it as a real-time channel for the platform’s most market-moving posts.
US President Donald Trump holds roughly 41% of the company through a revocable trust overseen by his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., with the stake currently worth close to $1 billion (€866mn).
Official announcements, The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation argue, belong to the public rather than to whoever pays most for them.
The complaint, which names US President Donald Trump alongside deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, executive assistant Natalie Harp and the Executive Office of the President, calls the arrangement “profoundly corrupt”.
It argues the service breaches the First Amendment by denying equal access to presidential announcements and the Fifth by conditioning that access on unreasonable sums, noting that many of the 9,000 to 11,000 posts Trump has published since January 2025 came with no White House statement.
“Trump is trying to enrich himself by privatizing government information,” said Ben Muessig, editor-in-chief of The Intercept.
A Trump Media spokesperson countered that critics show “a failure to grasp the distinction between public and nonpublic information”, adding that left-wing activists were weaponising the courts.
The White House has not commented on the lawsuit which follows a request last month from US Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff for the Securities and Exchange Commission to examine whether the service undermines market integrity.
The service formalises an advantage that has drawn questions for months.
On several occasions this year, futures markets have registered unusual bursts of activity minutes before major Iran war announcements appeared on US President Donald Trump’s account.
No investigation has reached a conclusion.
The clearest case came on 23 March, when the S&P 500 and oil futures recorded isolated volume spikes at about 6:50am in New York. Fifteen minutes later Trump posted that talks with Iran had taken place and strikes on its energy infrastructure were paused.
Equity futures jumped more than 2.5% and West Texas Intermediate fell almost 6%.
According to one analysis of 1,341 posts between late January and early April, conducted by the Queensland University of Technology, there were 15 episodes that raised suspicions of insider trading.
Earnings Call Insights: Ascend Wellness Holdings (AAWH) Q2 2026
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Two of the most influential voices in energy markets set out opposing readings of the year on Wednesday.
The IEA now expects the world to burn less oil in 2026 than it did in 2025, its first such call since Covid-19 ground the global economy to a near-halt, while OPEC still pencils in growth, leaving them more than two million barrels a day apart.
The Paris-based IEA now expects global oil demand to fall by 1.6 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2026, a downgrade of 510,000 b/d from July.
“The ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz and elevated fuel prices continue to weigh on oil consumption,” it said, cutting its second-half forecast by roughly 550,000 b/d.
OPEC still expects demand to grow, though its estimate has been trimmed for a fourth consecutive month, to 580,000 b/d from 780,000 b/d.
The producer group has consistently argued the war has done less damage to consumption than Western forecasters believe, and the two sets of numbers imply a difference of about 2.2 mb/d in what the world will burn this year.
The supply picture explains the pessimism.
Global production rose by 2.4 mb/d to 101.5 mb/d in July but remained 6.3 mb/d below year-earlier levels, with 8.3 mb/d of Gulf output still shut in.
Gulf production climbed to 23.9 mb/d, yet regional exports fell 2.1 mb/d to 15 mb/d after the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed again in early July and tankers and infrastructure came under attack, with loadings sliding from 20 mb/d to around 12 mb/d.
With no deal to reopen the waterway or secure passage through Bab el-Mandeb, the IEA cut its supply forecasts again and now expects output to fall by 4.3 mb/d this year.
Observed global stocks also dropped by 69 million barrels in July to just under 7.9 billion, down 410 million since the war began.
Where the two agree is next year.
OPEC now expects demand to grow by 2.2 mb/d in 2027, an upgrade from the 1.94 mb/d it forecast last month, while the IEA goes further still at 2.4 mb/d.
That is an inversion worth highlighting, as the gloomier forecaster for this year delivers a more bullish read for the next.
The IEA reads the damage as a blockage rather than a collapse, oil that cannot reach buyers rather than demand that has vanished, so the deeper this year’s hole, the steeper the climb out of it once Hormuz reopens.
OPEC, which never accepted that consumption fell much, has less ground to make up for.
The agency’s outlook rests explicitly on de-escalation, assuming flows gradually recover and turning this year’s supply contraction into growth of 8.3 mb/d, flipping a 1.3 mb/d deficit into a 4.6 mb/d surplus.
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Oil prices climbed and world stocks were mixed on Wednesday, with Asian shares mostly higher even as Wall Street slipped further from last week’s record highs, as investors awaited a crucial US inflation reading and watched for any breakthrough in the stalled Iran war talks.
The price of a barrel of Brent crude, the international benchmark, was up 0.9% at $89.67 early on Wednesday. US benchmark crude picked up 0.9% to $83.98.
Gold edged up 0.8% to $4,400.44 an ounce, while silver gained 1% to $65.30 an ounce.
Iran has rejected a comment by US President Donald Trump suggesting that, since Tehran is seeking compensation as part of any talks to end the war, Washington would demand the same.
The United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February, a strike that led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and kept much of the world’s oil pent up in the Middle East. Last month alone, Brent’s price swung between $72 and $102 a barrel.
Meanwhile, an attack by Iran-backed Houthi rebels on a vessel in the Bab el-Mandeb strait, off Yemen’s southern tip, has raised concerns that the violence could reignite civil war and further threaten regional shipping routes.
Higher oil prices worsen inflation, and they have pushed the average cost of a gallon of regular petrol in the US to $4.01, according to AAA — up from less than $3.14 a year ago.
That has Wall Street’s attention fixed on Wednesday, when the US government releases its latest monthly inflation reading. Economists expect it to show inflation slipped to 3.4% in July from 3.5% in June.
On Tuesday, the S&P 500 fell 0.3% for a second modest drop since setting its all-time high on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 184 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite sank 0.6%.
Cooler inflation could ease pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to tamp down price increases.
Higher rates could curb inflation, but they would also drag on the wider US economy by making it more expensive for households and businesses to borrow, while undercutting prices for stocks and other investments.
Treasury yields have jumped since the war with Iran began, driven by higher oil prices and inflation worries, sending long-term US mortgage rates to their highest levels in a year.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.6% to 67,334.94.
In South Korea, the Kospi jumped more than 4% to 6,597.90 on renewed buying of computer chipmakers. Samsung Electronics gained 7.7% and memory chipmaker SK Hynix rose 7.1%.
Taiwan’s Taiex advanced 0.8%.
The Shanghai Composite index added 0.3% to 3,946.51, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 1.2% to 25,352.13.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.6% to 9,197.00.
In other early Wednesday dealings, the dollar rose to 159.41 yen from 159.30 yen. The euro slipped to $1.1535 from $1.1544.
Additional sources • AP
European shares have started August 2026 in almost the opposite way to what their seasonal reputation would suggest.
The EURO STOXX 50 and DAX are hovering near record highs, while the CAC 40 remains close to its peak. Yet August has historically been one of Europe’s weakest months.
That contradiction raises a more interesting question than whether investors should simply “sell in August”.
The data suggests August is not consistently a bad month. Instead, its poor reputation has been shaped by a small number of extraordinary market shocks.
European shares have started August 2026 in almost the opposite way to what their seasonal reputation would suggest.
The EURO STOXX 50 and DAX are hovering near record highs, while the CAC 40 remains close to its peak. Yet August has historically been one of Europe’s weakest months.
That contradiction raises a more interesting question than whether investors should simply “sell in August”.
The data suggests August is not consistently a bad month. Instead, its poor reputation has been shaped by a small number of extraordinary market shocks.
Germany’s DAX, which tracks the 40 largest companies on the Frankfurt exchange, tells the same story going back to 1970.
August has averaged a loss of 1.03%. September has averaged a loss of 1.64%.
France’s CAC 40, which tracks the 40 biggest companies in Paris, has data going back to 1988. August has averaged a loss of 1.22%. September has averaged a loss of 1.38%.
Three different countries, three different stretches of history — and exactly the same ranking. September worst, August second.
Yet August 2026 has looked nothing like that.
On 11 August, the EURO STOXX 50 closed at an all-time high above 6,560 points, up roughly 13% since the start of the year. The DAX moved above 26,450 for the first time, while the CAC 40 finished around 8,740 points.
So who is right — the calendar or the market?
The short answer: the calendar has a much weaker case than it appears.
An average is only useful when the numbers around it are relatively similar.
Picture five people walking into a room. Four earn €30,000 a year, one earns €1 million. The average income in that room suddenly looks far higher than what most people actually take home.
August equity returns have a similar problem. A handful of extreme crashes drag the long-term average sharply lower.
That is where the median becomes useful. It is simply the middle observation once every August return is ranked from worst to best, so half the years sit below it and half above — a better guide to what a typical August actually looks like.
For the EURO STOXX 50, the median August return is -0.19%, a very different picture from the -1.42% average. The typical August has been close to flat.
Most of the damage comes from five extraordinary episodes.
In August 1998, the EURO STOXX index fell 14.44% as Russia defaulted on domestic debt and devalued the rouble.
In August 1990, it dropped 13.82% after Iraq invaded Kuwait. August 2011 brought a 13.79% fall as the eurozone debt crisis intensified around Italy and Spain. In August 1997, the index lost 9.99% as the Asian financial crisis spread across the region, and in August 2015 it fell 9.19% when China devalued the yuan.
These were not ordinary corrections. They were global shocks that happened to land in August.
Strip out those five years and the EURO STOXX 50’s average August return flips from -1.42% to +0.17%. Five years out of 39 turn a seemingly weak month into a slightly positive one.
The explanation may have less to do with the month itself than with how markets function during the summer.
Europe effectively goes on holiday in August. Trading desks thin out and fewer investors are actively setting prices. That does not cause a sell-off on its own, but it can make markets more sensitive once one begins.
There are also fewer scheduled monetary-policy decisions. The European Central Bank’s latest meeting was in July, with its next scheduled decision not due until September.
The US Federal Reserve follows a similar summer gap, leaving markets with fewer major policy events to anchor expectations at precisely the moment liquidity is thinnest.
Then there is Jackson Hole. The Federal Reserve’s annual conference in Wyoming, held later in August, can become a major market event in its own right, particularly when investors are hunting for clues on interest rates.
This year’s gathering carries extra weight: it is Kevin Warsh’s first Jackson Hole address as Fed chair.
August therefore combines three potentially volatile ingredients: thinner liquidity, fewer scheduled policy events, and the possibility of a significant central bank signal arriving late in the month.
The historical pattern is only useful if investors understand what has changed.
European equities entered August at or near record highs, underpinned by strong earnings expectations. Reuters reported that analysts had raised expectations for second-quarter earnings growth across the STOXX 600 to almost 21%, up from 12.5% in May — giving markets a fundamentally stronger backdrop than the historical average would suggest.
But there is another side to the ledger. The Middle East energy shock remains a risk for Europe: higher energy prices could push inflation back up while squeezing consumers and corporate margins at the same time.
Eurozone inflation eased to 2.8% in June, down from 3.2% in May, though a fresh energy shock could complicate the path back to the European Central Bank’s 2% target.
That leaves an unusual setup heading into the rest of the month.
The historical record does not say European stocks must fall this month. In fact, the EURO STOXX 50 and DAX have both finished August higher almost half the time.
What history does show is more subtle: August is not necessarily Europe’s seasonal crash month. It is a month in which rare shocks have historically produced unusually large losses. That distinction matters in 2026.
Investors do not need to predict whether August will end higher or lower. The more useful question is whether markets, having just reached record highs, are sufficiently prepared for an unexpected shock arriving while liquidity is thin.
That is what the August pattern is really warning about — not a calendar effect, but a vulnerability.
The Financial Times turned heads when it got the scoop that the Venezuelan government is to reveal a debt pile of over $240 billions in its recently announced foreign debt restructuring, well over previous estimates of around $150-200 bn. Although this was sold as a shocker, it’s actually misleading because it validates the false claim that all of Venezuela’s incurred debt (whether written in a contract registered with the SEC or a whisky-soaked napkin) has the same validity and ought to be paid or else to re-enter international finance markets and attract foreign investment. The truth is that not all debts are created equal, nor do Venezuelans have to pay for all of it. So what is the actual extent of debt Venezuela has to pay? And given the recent announcement, what are the chances of Delcy & Co. of pulling this off?
Venezuela faces late payments and arrears for sovereign and PDVSA bonds issued in the US with ironclad legal and conflict-resolution provisions in US courts. All of this debt is easily quantifiable, as it was approved by the Venezuelan parliament, in the case of the Republic, or included in financial statements, in the case of PDVSA. This amounts to $60 bn, plus $40 bn in arrears. This debt is legally valid and backed by evidence, and has many provisions on cross-default and other legal remedies for bondholders. Its successful restructuring is necessary for the country to re-enter international financial markets. Thus, it is the one that requires urgent attention and probably more willingness to compromise. Some question the validity of the 2020 PDVSA bond, which was issued with a lien over the shares of Citgo’s holding company, but a recent ruling by a NY court established that the bond was validly issued, and it was a taste of the results that a strategy of contesting these bonds in courts (with provisions drafted by the best lawyers money can buy) will yield instead of negotiating.
Venezuela also owes $20 bn in unpaid arbitral awards for the expropriation extravaganza of the late Hugo Chávez. These unpaid arbitral awards expose the country to international litigation and seizure of assets, while not as fundamental to restore access to international finance as the bonds. Its payment is necessary to assuage international markets and foreign investors. There is also $4 bn in debt to development banks, which is very important to honor to regain market access and restore investor confidence.
All of this amounts, in a worst-case scenario, to around $200 bn. If the debt restructuring is indeed a serious endeavor, it will focus on renegotiating these amounts, particularly the bonds.
Venezuela also owes around $50 bn to suppliers and contractors of the oil industry. Settling this debt is necessary to significantly increase oil production. However, as much of this debt has not been properly audited and may include creditors involved in corruption schemes, quantifying, negotiating, and paying it will probably take more time, and the focus should be on paying the companies that the country needs to re-engage to increase oil production and recover oil infrastructure.
Venezuela also owes China around $10-20 bn under an “oil-for-loan” financing mechanism from the Chávez era. Given that China is a major global power player, it is important to honor this debt. The Chinese and chavismo had already negotiated oil shipments to service debt, and the Chinese are very well aware of the mistake this scheme was and will probably be accommodating as long as they keep getting paid.
You are probably wondering why I do not mention Cadivi and unpaid FX claims in the total debt. The catch is that unsettled Cadivi claims are not foreign debt proper, but administrative authorizations to convert local currency into FX under a foreign exchange control regime. In past foreign exchange controls in Venezuela, case law determined that these authorizations were not enforceable debt and claimants took the loss and were never paid. This will happen again.
Venezuela also owes Russia around $6 bn. Considering the current circumstances, its restructuring and payment can wait.
Venezuela needs a bailout, which can only come from the IMF. But IMF intervention is an impossible demand right now for Delcy Rodríguez.
All of this amounts, in a worst-case scenario, to around $200 bn. If the debt restructuring is indeed a serious endeavor, it will focus on renegotiating these amounts, particularly the bonds. The Financial Times does not mention where this $40 bn difference comes from. Any debt that was not approved by Congress or was issued not following the legal procedure does not have to be included pari passu with the debt issued to Wall Street and the World Bank, and Venezuela is not obliged to pay it to borrow money again. Argentina did not have to renegotiate all of its debt to re-enter the credit market. Any other hidden debt that comes up during a restructuring can be challenged in court and the Venezuelan government can refuse to pay. We will not further mortgage our country’s future more than necessary to access international credit markets to enrich shady actors who profited from our misery and didn’t even bother to hire good lawyers for when shit hit the fan.
Renegotiating a sovereign debt this massive without the support of the IMF would be daunting to our brightest minds, not to mention to Delcy’s few English-speaking minions. There are huge obstacles in the way. PDVSA remains governed by a 19th-century bankruptcy regime that makes it very difficult to restructure its debt efficiently. Moreover, its bonds do not have collective action clauses, or CACs, meaning they can only be renegotiated with 100% agreement of bondholders, which, like in the case of Argentina, could lead to holdouts and years of litigation. Most of the bonds issued by the Republic do have CACs, so they would be easier to renegotiate with a haircut (reduction in their notional value).
So what is the most likely outcome? I remain skeptical about the seriousness of this whole enterprise. Without IMF support, Venezuela, with meager international reserves and a severe balance-of-payments constraint, simply cannot produce enough foreign currency for necessary imports, much less for servicing debt. This is a severe structural barrier. Venezuela needs a bailout, which can only come from the IMF.
IMF intervention is an impossible demand right now for Delcy Rodríguez. First, because it would imply fiscal austerity that would probably lead to social unrest for an already incredibly unpopular president with zero legitimacy. Additionally, the Washington Consensus has been a bête noire for chavismo since its inception, and would put her even more at odds with factions of her already fragile coalition.
Maybe there is a scenario where they will be able to negotiate some of the debt (probably in predatory terms for Venezuelans) with some liens or guarantees over oil assets. But considering the dire state of the country’s finances, the absence of the IMF from the process, the lack of any macroeconomic reforms that will enable the country to service debt again, and the “technical shortcomings” of the people running the show, even this seems unlikely.
The announcement of the debt restructuring was more of a gimmick to gain time—one of chavismo’s true gifts—by the Rodrigato to appease both the US and the naive bondholders who helped to put her in power. But, once again, there are no shortcuts to any meaningful change in the country’s economy that do not involve the now dreaded T-word: “transition.”
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Crude and US Treasury yields rose together as traders judged that the exchange of compensation demands between the US and Iran has pushed any potential deal further out of reach.
The US president said on Monday he had told his negotiators to seek payment from Iran for Americans killed and wounded in attacks he attributes to Tehran going back decades, including the bombing of the USS Cole in the year 2000 and for Iranians killed in protest crackdowns.
In a follow-up post on Truth Social he expanded on the demand, saying Iran should also pay for “the damages and death caused to the people of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza”.
Tehran, whose representatives had sought compensation for five months of US and Israeli bombardment, says the Strait of Hormuz will stay shut until Washington lifts its naval blockade, ends sanctions and releases frozen Iranian assets.
The front month contract on Brent traded at around $89.8 a barrel on Tuesday and West Texas Intermediate at about $84.2, both up roughly 2.5%.
The US bond market read it the same way, with yields rising across the US curve in a modest global sell-off, the two-year over 4.25%, the ten-year above 4.7% and the thirty-year higher than 5.27%. The yields for all durations are trading at the highs of this year.
Since yields move inversely to prices, the rise means investors are selling government debt as they expect that costlier oil will feed into inflation and strengthen the case for higher interest rates.
Money markets now put roughly even odds on a Federal Reserve rate hike in September, with July inflation data due on Wednesday.
The current stalling of US-Iran negotiations is deliberate as US President Donald Trump appears to have been favouring a slower approach as of late.
The US president told Axios in an interview published on Sunday that the US is “low-keying it,” meaning Washington was only semi-negotiating and content to watch Iran’s inflation and empty coffers do the work, a signal he is prepared to let economic pressure mount rather than order a fresh military campaign.
In the Oval Office on Monday, he struck a triumphant note, claiming the US controls “100%” of the Strait of Hormuz, that only the US Navy holds sway in the region, that American forces have swept it clear of Iranian mines and that the blockade of Iranian ports is impenetrable.
However, shipping data tells another story.
Confirmed crossings have run at 6 to 11 vessels a day recently, against the 130 to 140 daily before the war, according to Kpler data, leaving traffic at a fraction of normal levels throughout the five-month conflict.
FabrikaCr
HSBC remained bullish on global equities, saying concerns around AI, rates, and geopolitics were increasingly reflected in market prices while fundamentals continue to improve.
“We remain comfortably bullish on global equities,” Alastair Pinder, HSBC’s head of EM and global equity strategy, and Pankaj
Half of America’s most advanced missiles are gone. The Pentagon wants $67bn to restock, on top of $37.5bn already spent fighting Iran. So where is all that money actually going? Al Jazeera’s Yasmeen ElTahan explains.
Published On 11 Aug 202611 Aug 2026
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The war on Iran is exposing shortages in US weapons stockpiles, raising questions about years of defence spending. As a former Pentagon official points out, after less than five months of fighting the US is already running out of ammunition against a ‘middle-tier country’.
Published On 11 Aug 202611 Aug 2026
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ATLANTA — Former Rep. Pat Swindall was convicted today of nine counts of perjury for lying to a federal grand jury about a money-laundering scheme.
The 38-year-old conservative Republican, who served two terms in Congress from Atlanta’s suburbs before being defeated in November, could receive up to five years in prison plus fines of $250,000 on each count at sentencing Aug. 25.
Swindall left the courtroom saying he was “numb, disappointed, but not terribly surprised,” as his wife, Kim, stood behind him, wearing a lilac maternity dress and clutching his hand.
‘Have Been Forgiven’
“I had said months before that I had gotten into something,” Swindall said, referring to a tearful apology he issued after the case became public last year. “I confessed publicly and openly, and for that I feel I have been forgiven by God and my constituents.
“I’m prepared to do whatever I have to do. If I have to go to prison, I’ll go to prison and I’ll have a good attitude about it.”
The jury deliberated 17 hours over four days after nearly four weeks of testimony. Swindall was indicted in October on 10 counts of perjury. U.S. District Judge Richard C. Freeman dismissed one count during the trial.
The former congressman was accused of lying to a grand jury in 1988 about his 1987 negotiations with an IRS agent posing as a drug-money launderer and with Swindall associate Charles LeChasney, later convicted of money laundering.
Among other things, Swindall was found guilty of perjury for denying that he had been told that the $850,000 he was seeking from the agent to finish building his luxurious home contained proceeds from drug trafficking.
Appeal Planned
Swindall’s chief attorney, Richard Hendrix, said he will appeal.
Swindall, a lanky, boyish lawyer, went to Congress in 1984 from the city’s affluent eastern suburbs as a conservative, fundamentalist Christian. Under the cloud of the perjury indictment, he lost to Democrat Ben Jones, who appeared in “The Dukes of Hazzard” television series.
The jury heard secretly taped conversations with the undercover agent, Mike Mullaney, in which Swindall was told that the $850,000 “certainly” included drug money and that he would be part of an operation to “wash” cash. Swindall proposed that a mortgage company be set up by LeChasney as a “buffer” to allow him to “borrow” the agent’s money.
In their last conversation after Swindall had received a $150,000 advance, he told Mullaney, “If Charles wants to launder y’all’s money, fine. But I can’t do that. . . . I can borrow the money from Charles.”
Swindall was a largely unknown lawyer and furniture store owner when he was elected in an upset in 1984, toppling veteran Democrat Elliott Levitas.
‘Biblical Score Card’
Swindall, a Presbyterian, took his campaign to evangelical churches, distributing a “Biblical score card” in his race against Levitas, who is Jewish.
In his two terms, Swindall staunchly voted with the Reagan right and acquired a reputation as somewhat of a gadfly, voting against such popular programs as school lunch funding and aid to African famine victims. He filed a brief with the Supreme Court advocating the teaching of “creationism” in schools.
Remittances are surviving the new US tax—at least for now.
This article appears in the July/August issue of Global Finance Magazine.
The Dominican Republic isn’t just a tourist paradise; it has a more diversified economy than most Caribbean nations. Yet foreign remittances still reach four in 10 households. Last year, Dominicans abroad sent home a record $11.87 billion, up 10.3% from 2024, according to the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic (BCRD).
For such a country, 2025 was a banner year. But as of January 1, Washington has been levying a 1% tax on remittances paid by cash, money orders, or cashier’s checks under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Trump signed last year.
Related: Country Report: The Dominican Republic Is on the Rebound
While the tax has heightened anxiety in migrant communities, the BCRD forecasts a mild impact on the country, with remittance growth slowing to 3.5% in 2026, or roughly $12.2 billion. Manuel Orozco, director of the Migration, Remittances and Development Program at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank, broadly agrees, though for reasons rooted less in the tax than in how Dominicans send money.
“My estimate is about 4% growth this year,” Orozco says. “I wouldn’t argue that the slowdown is due to the 1% tax, but rather to the precautionary fear factor.”
Early data supports his analysis. Patricia Krause, economist for Latin America at Coface, a French trade-credit insurance company, says the levy has yet to leave a mark: “Although there was an expectation that it could affect remittance figures, that has not been the case for the Dominican Republic, at least so far. While remittances reached $4.1 billion in the first four months of 2026 — up 4% year over year — the increase was 11% year over year in April,” Krause notes.
According to Orozco’s analysis, remittances across all of Latin America and the Caribbean are projected to grow by 4.7% in 2026, a growth rate that is down from 6.3% the previous year. This indicates that “the slowdown is regional rather than Dominican,” he says.
The reason the tax has landed softly thus far is the taxing mechanism; it applies only to transfers funded with physical cash or paper instruments, not to those paid from a bank account or card, and most Dominicans in the U.S. are able to avoid it.
“More than 80% of Dominicans hold a bank account, and 60% were already sending money digitally before the tax arrived,” Orozco says. “That leaves roughly 40% who send cash, and that cash is not informal.”
Ninety-nine percent of money transfers originate through licensed companies like Western Union, and many of those senders also hold a bank account, he adds: “Instead of using cash, they may just use their debit card and avoid the charges.” At the receiving end of the corridor, cash remains king, with about 70% of transfers still collected as cash, a quarter of them through a home-delivery network Orozco likens to “DoorDash since the ’80s.”
That reflects the makeup of the Dominican diaspora, which is concentrated in the U.S. The fact that the country’s economy is not over-reliant on remittances also helps soften the tax impact. The inflows are worth close to 10% of GDP, Orozco says — 9% in 2024, according to World Bank data — but the country relies on a “much more dynamic” export-manufacturing base than its CAFTA trade partners.
Related: Dominican Republic Tourism Surges
Still, that 1% tax means a lot less cash coming into the country. The loss will total $230.7 million in 2026, according to Helen Dempster, co-director of the Migration and Displacement Program at the Center for Global Development (CGD), a Washington-based think tank. The CGD’s dataset “suggests the Dominican Republic is among the countries most exposed to the U.S. remittance tax,” she added.
However, Orozco’s own survey found that among migrants who send cash, the majority intend to continue doing so and absorb the tax rather than switch. “The impact is on the income of the cash sender,” he says. He ties the levy to the politics of the law that produced it. “It’s part of a broader political agenda aimed at migrant practices the administration deems unacceptable.”
Solly Boussidan is a contributing writer based in Brazil.
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Commentary American Banks Left the Door Open. European Fintechs Are Walking In.
The new battleground for U.S. banking will be about who owns relationships, not who has the biggest balance sheet.
Netflix Inc. co-founder and former CEO Reed Hastings said a few things in 2014 that American banks and fintechs should consider pinning on the breakroom wall or at the top of their main Slack channel.
“We were so obsessed with not being the next Kodak, the next AOL, about not being the company that clung to its roots and missed the big thing.” Hastings recalled: “We said if there’s a bias, we should be more aggressive; we have to be so aggressive it makes our skin crawl.”
Hastings was reflecting on Netflix’s failed 2011 decision to split its DVD and streaming businesses. The move turned him into a temporary laughingstock—one who, as history has made clear, had the last laugh.
It’s hard to imagine the CEO of a major American bank or fintech saying anything like this.
And that’s precisely the problem: While many U.S. banks and fintechs still think like financial institutions, Europe’s most ambitious challengers think like global technology companies.
Global technology companies don’t wait for perfect conditions; they navigate imperfect ones.
That’s the playbook businesses such as Netflix, Uber Technologies Inc., and Amazon.com Inc. followed because international expansion was always part of the plan. These companies didn’t use legal complexity as an excuse for standing still, nor did they stop after achieving success.
Of course, tech isn’t banking. One could argue that the stakes are higher and the consequences of being too aggressive are greater.
But Revolut Group Holdings Ltd. co-founder and CEO Nik Storonsky might politely disagree, because that’s exactly what London-based Revolut is doing as it blazes its global trail—politely disagreeing.
Amid exponential growth in Europe, the company has had to deal with different regulations, entrenched incumbents, and cultural barriers across nations—and, in some cases, even regions. For goodness’ sake, Revolut had to make Catalan, not Castilian (Spanish), the default language on its ATMs throughout Spain’s Catalonia region, which includes Barcelona.
The point is clear: The U.S. is hardly the only market where regulation and culture can feel like roadblocks. Fintechs such as Revolut have amassed considerable experience dealing with these obstacles.
As Yorick Naeff, head of innovation at ABN AMRO Bank NV, told me, Europe may talk about a single market, but companies still have “to conquer every market separately again and again.” Tax systems, know-your-customer rules, reporting requirements, consumer behavior, and language all change from country to country—as do the challenges along the way.
In other words, Europe is already a regulatory maze. Fundamentally, the U.S. isn’t a different challenge; it’s just a new one.
Recently, the Financial Times reported that the European Central Bank placed restrictions on Revolut in 2025 to slow down the company’s rapid approval of new products. In April, news broke that Italian authorities fined Revolut €11.5 million ($13.3 million) for “unfair commercial practices.”
Revolut’s response has been a mix of pushback, lip service, and concrete action, such as hiring experienced banking executives who can help the company scale globally while managing complex regulatory environments. None of this has stopped what Storonsky called the company’s “self-guided missiles”—small groups of employees who have the latitude to deploy new products rapidly with minimal corporate oversight.
Revolut has more than 70 million customers worldwide, up from 50 million in November 2024. Across France, Poland, Germany, the U.K., Ireland, Italy, and Spain, nearly one in three new financial accounts is with Revolut. Despite the regulatory friction, Revolut adds about four new Italian customers per minute. In Spain, where traditional banks are thought to have a stronghold, Revolut has more than 6 million accounts for a 13% penetration rate, making it the country’s fourth-largest bank by number of customers.
Revolut enters the U.S. battle-tested, armed with the necessary experience to navigate another complicated regulatory landscape, ready to seize the opportunity American banks and fintechs have left wide open.
To an observer in Europe, one thing is obvious: The U.S. still lacks a company trying to own the entire financial relationship.
Americans still piece together banking, payments, investing, foreign exchange, travel, insurance, and mobile connectivity across multiple platforms. That’s far less the case in Europe and elsewhere around the world.
Revolut, the U.K.’s Monzo Bank Ltd., Germany’s N26 AG, and the Netherlands’ bunq BV all extend well beyond traditional banking. Spain’s Banco Santander SA recently launched an eSIM directly in its app. Swedish buy-now-pay-later pioneer Klarna Bank AB is a fully licensed bank in the E.U. and has applied for its U.S. banking license.
None of these companies see banking as a collection of products. They want to be the primary financial relationship—the place where customers start, not occasionally visit.
Ironically, the closest the U.S. has to this model isn’t a traditional bank at all; it’s Cash App. Block Inc., the parent company of Cash App, deserves enormous credit for recognizing that consumer finance is about more than checking, high APYs, and commission-free stock trades. But as big as it has become, Cash App remains more narrowly focused than the expansive ecosystems emerging across Europe, many with their sights set on the U.S.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon also deserves credit for recognizing that something has changed. When he admitted he was jealous of Revolut’s speed, it didn’t take a linguist to read between the lines.
Sure, Dimon was complimenting a rival—as JPMorgan continues to compete more aggressively on Revolut’s European turf—but it appears he was sending a message to the U.S. banking establishment. By and large, the companies operating like tomorrow’s global consumer platforms aren’t American, and their speed and ambition are something to aspire to.
So why take on America now? As Naeff pointed out, part of the reason “is the size of the market; with even a small percentage market share, you can create an attractive business case.” Just as importantly, these companies believe they can compete not simply on rates or fees, but on experience.
Unless more American banks and fintechs start thinking like global tech companies—such as Netflix, Uber, and Amazon or, in their same sector, like Santander—Europe’s challengers won’t just enter the U.S. market; they’ll redefine what consumers come to expect from the companies they trust with their money.
Rocco Pendola is a U.S.-born journalist based in Spain covering finance, fintech, and investing.
