Good news, everyone! Close to announcing a recovery plan for $UST. Hang tight. — Do Kwon 🌕 (@stablekwon) May 10, 2022 His plan is to bail out Terra, the algorithmic stablecoin, which detached from its peg on Monday and has been torching billions in VC capital ever since. So far, the plan has failed spectacularly:

German insurer Allianz has added another €1.9bn to provisions for payouts over a scandal at its US asset management business, taking the total amount to cover fines and other costs to €5.6bn. In February, the Munich-based group set aside €3.7bn to pay for settlements with investors who put money into hedge funds managed by its

Global banks are facing increasing regulatory pressure over their climate change vulnerabilities — ranging from the risks posed to the future value of assets, to the difficulty in dealing with heavily polluting clients. At the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow last year, many banks congratulated themselves on their ‘green’ financing initiatives. But the world’s biggest

The biggest reform in UK home and car insurance in years was intended to shake up the market. The changes introduced by the Financial Conduct Authority on January 1 were designed to stop insurers giving new customers discounts not available to longstanding clients.  In other words, they were supposed to close the gap between those who

In his maiden speech at the group’s annual general meeting last month, Credit Suisse chair Axel Lehmann gave a brutal assessment of what lay at the heart of the bank’s recent spate of high-profile scandals. “It has become clear that the challenges of the past were not solely attributable to isolated poor decisions or to

How many times can the same chief executive make a “gaffe” before investors should start taking him at his word? Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess infuriated Ukrainian officials this week by suggesting the EU should prioritise a rapid settlement with the country’s Russian invaders for the sake of economic growth. “I think we should do the

More than a century has passed since Henri Matisse created “The Red Studio”, a painting of a roomful of paintings, and I have seen it innumerable times at MoMA. Yet it hasn’t relinquished the ability to rattle and exhilarate. Its radicalism endures. This is where Matisse found the ideal marriage between broad blocks of colour

The once-niche carbon market is attracting wealthy individuals in pursuit of a new way to make money. And, at the same time, as society’s concerns over climate change grow, it is providing them with a potential route to a greener portfolio. The rich and their money managers are now taking an interest in the market

Fundraising by China-focused private equity investors has fallen to its lowest level in 13 years, as early-stage backers of the country’s start-up scene grapple with Beijing’s tech crackdown and zero-Covid policies. Venture capital and private equity funds concentrating on the Greater China region raised just $1.7bn in the first quarter of 2022, according to estimates

Assessing a company’s performance based on its social responsibility rather than its balance sheet is no easy task. Environmental, social and governance frameworks that source information from public databases and expert analyses put all the considerations into one equation. The variables of life can make it challenging to produce a trustworthy output. But this difficulty

Coinbase’s trading volumes fell more than 40 per cent in the first quarter, as its worse than expected earnings and bleak outlook underscored the fallout from the crypto bear market. Shares in the largest US cryptocurrency exchange fell more than 15 per cent in after-hours trading, after the company reported net losses of $430mn, far

Tech features in a solid seven of the 38 bills put forward in the UK government’s legislative programme for the next parliamentary session, unveiled in the Queen’s Speech delivered by Prince Charles today. The main theme is the government seeking Brexit benefits by loosening regulations enforced by the EU, reducing requirements and opening up the

A global equity sell-off hit Asian markets on Tuesday after the steepest one-day fall on Wall Street since 2020 as investors worried about a slowdown in the world’s largest economies. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index slid 2.8 per cent in afternoon trading after a one-day holiday. Chinese technology groups listed in the territory recorded some

Elon Musk has said he would reverse Donald Trump’s ban from Twitter, accusing the social media company of leftwing bias that had aggravated political divisions in the US. “I think it was a morally bad decision, and foolish in the extreme,” Musk said of the lifetime ban of Trump, which was imposed soon after a

Spain has sacked the head of its national intelligence agency, as the government seeks to draw a line under a political crisis triggered by the use of Pegasus spyware against the prime minister and allegations that dozens of Catalan separatist politicians were also targeted. Paz Esteban was fired as director of the National Intelligence Centre

A Republican senator is pushing the US Treasury to tighten its sanctions on a range of companies, warning that gaps in the current regime are strengthening the hand of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Steve Daines, a senator from Montana and one of the first members of Congress to visit Ukraine after war broke out, urged

Low-cost carrier Wizz Air is exploring launching flights to Saudi Arabia, part of an ambitious expansion strategy as the travel industry emerges from the pandemic. The London-listed airline on Tuesday said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Saudi government to explore “airline market development opportunities” in the country, which hopes to expand

The UK’s regulator for payment services is to gain the power to force banks to offer compensation to blameless victims of “push payment” scams, highlighting “disparities” in the current voluntary approach. The proposed measure was announced on Tuesday as part of the financial services and markets bill, alongside a commitment to ensuring continued access to

The big story in crypto-land so far this week is the Terra stablecoin, which has proven to be neither strong nor stable. You’ll probably know already that, by applying the Code is Law principle to monetary policy, Terra wants to become the internet’s reserve currency. You’ll also know that it’s not going entirely to plan.

The head of Stellantis has warned that carmakers will struggle to get hold of enough batteries in the next three to four years as they race to roll out electric vehicles, leaving some manufacturers by the wayside as supply bottlenecks pile up. Carlos Tavares told the Financial Times’ Future of the Car conference on Tuesday