Asset Servicing

It was June 2008 when I flew to New York to meet Paul Volcker for the first time. That trip is memorable for two reasons: first and foremost, of course, for the opportunity to sit down and talk with Volcker. But also because that week, EUR/USD reached its all-time high, just shy of 1.60.

Private banks race for growth as ‘hunters’ return to favour. Who wins the client, and who keeps them loyal?

This week’s overview of people transfers and appointments includes updates from Apex, EY, DWS Group, Aberdeen, Coutts, GAM and HSBC.

Vietnamese finance minister Nguyen Van Thang met with representatives from FTSE Russell last week to discuss the potential reclassification of Vietnam’s capital market. This marks an important moment in Vietnam’s journey from frontier market to emerging market status in 2025—a long-awaited upgrade that has been on the table since 2018.

First-half numbers posted last week by Partners Group, followed by a sober warning from Morningstar on Monday, suggest that momentum in semi-liquid evergreens may stall if returns continue to disappoint.

Investors still too often view emerging market debt (EMD) as a simple choice between hard and local currency. That’s a missed opportunity, says Cathy Hepworth, who established PGIM Fixed Income’s EMD team 30 years ago. According to her, the true strength of the asset class lies in its diversity.

Local emerging-markets debt strategies took a beating in the last quarter of 2024 but recovered spectacularly in dollar terms in the first half of 2025 with the widely-used JPM GBI-EM Global Diversified index recording a return of 13 percent for the six-month period.

Developments in public finances are unfolding at such a rapid pace that there’s barely time left to look at asset prices themselves. But if you take a step back, it’s hard not to conclude that we are witnessing a regime shift. So why is hardly anyone talking about it?

The accelerating growth of active ETFs is blurring the lines between active and passive management. Critics warn that it may be an old trap in a new disguise: funds that claim to be active but behave almost exactly like an index—the so-called closet trackers.

Delen Private Bank is exploring plans to establish a permanent presence in Zurich. This would be its second Swiss base, after Geneva.