These two forces — growth and volatility — have been evident
during the past five years. Faced with sluggish growth and low
yields in the developed world, investors turned to new markets.
As “hot money” in search of yield flooded these markets,
businesses found their cost of funding reduced. But as yields
ticked up in the developed world following the tapering of QE,
capital flows slowed or reversed. In the first two months of this
year, more money flowed out of emerging market funds than
had done so over the whole of 2013.
As a result, interest rates have been raised in a number of
the emerging markets as central banks try to prop up their
currencies; thus, borrowers are coming under pressure, and
banks may see their non-performing loans increase. But
most banks in emerging markets are sufficiently capitalized
to weather a storm, and growth will pick up again, driven by
underlying fundamentals in most markets. The question many
banks are struggling with is how to generate maximum return
from this market growth.
Banks must combat three headwinds — tougher regulation,
intensifying competition and increasing costs — if they are to
weather the volatility of the markets and seize the profitable
opportunities they present.
A raft of regulation — to improve stability, to protect customers,
to address supervisory weaknesses and to align the interests
of foreign banks to local objectives — is putting compliance
departments under pressure.