The effects of globalisation of financial services on banking industry and stock market: an Algerian case study

Since the mid-1980s, Algeria has embarked on a programme of comprehensive financial liberalisation to establish a market-oriented financial system, and to develop the role of the Algiers Stock Exchange in the mobilisation of financial resources. The transition from a centrally planned to a market-oriented economy meant fewer regulatory barriers towards local and foreign banks. This study demonstrates that financial liberalisation is the main force that drives the globalisation of financial services, followed by financial innovations and the Internet. Globalisation has affected the performance of the two prevalent banking models in Algeria: interest based (conventional) and non- interest-based (Islamic). The benchmarks used to assess banking performance are: competition, profitability and efficiency. Quantitative and qualitative analyses show a direct link between banking efficiency and the globalisation of financial services. The study concludes that globalisation has more advantages than disadvantages to the Algerian banking sector and the Algiers Stock Exchange. The elimination of regulatory barriers has enabled state-owned banks to improve the quality of their services and to use more advanced information technologies. Private and foreign banks are also involved in the modernisation of the Algerian banking industry by launching innovative financial products and attracting local and foreign capital. However, this project emphasises that the removal of remaining regulatory obstacles would enable banks to benefit fully from the process of financial liberalisation, and to be active institutions in the financial market. Moreover, opening the Algiers Stock Exchange to large domestic and foreign companies would attract capital investments and boost equity trading in Algeria

Financial market integration under EMU

The single most important policy-induced innovation in the international financial system since the collapse of the Bretton-Woods regime is the institution of the European Monetary Union. This paper provides an account of how the process of financial integration has promoted financial development in the euro area. It starts by defining financial integration and how to measure it, analyzes the barriers that can prevent it and the effects of their removal on financial markets, and assesses whether the euro area has actually become more integrated. It then explores to which extent these changes in financial markets have influenced the performance of the euro-area economy, that is, its growth and investment, as well as its ability to adjust to shocks and to allow risk-sharing. The paper concludes analyzing further steps that are required to consolidate financial integration and enhance the future stability of financial markets

Regional Integration of Equity Markets in Sub-Saharan Africa

Equity markets in developing and emerging economies have grown in number and importance as a result of financial market globalisation. However, their role in economic growth and development is enhanced if nascent markets are integrated with well-established ones. Market integration, measured by the transmission of returns volatility, is identified across a sample of SSA countries, using a unique dataset. Evidence for potential integration between financial markets in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is found. Spillovers are found across markets, some unidirectional and others bi-directional. However, continued illiquidity and incomplete institutions indicate that an integrated financial community remains premature, and considerable regulatory reform and harmonisation will be necessary for this to succeed

Frankfurt - an emerging international financial centre

Characterised as the mighty capital of the eurozone (Sassen 1999, 83), Frankfurt is said to be a rising world city primarily due to its financial centre. This is reflected in the use of such common catchphrases as Bankfurt and Mainhattan for the city, as well as its reference in scientific publications. As Ronneberger and Keil (1995, 305) state, for instance, a service economy [...] mastered by the finance sector forms the basis for the continuing integration of Frankfurt into the international market. Frankfurt is the most important German as well as European financial centres. Thirteen of the 30 largest German banks and about two thirds of Germany s foreign banks are seated here. Frankfurt s stock exchange (ranked 4th in the world) is by far the biggest in Germany with a turnover-share of more than 80%. Its derivatives exchange (Eurex) aims to become the biggest in the world. As the host city for the European Central Bank, it is also the centre of European monetary policy. As a major node in the global financial network today, Frankfurt s specific functions within this network will be investigated in this paper. Unlike most other predominant national financial centres, Frankfurt has not continuously held this position in Germany s since the middle ages: It re-gained it s position from Berlin only after World War II. In contrast to the static phenomenon financial centre which is well covered in the literature emergence and development of financial centres is not as well understood. The study of the development of the financial centre Frankfurt after World War II gives insights into the dynamics of the self-reinforcing mechanisms within financial centres; the second topic covered in the paper. The paper is organised as follows: the remainder of this chapter looks at the method used in this study and the theory of financial centres with an emphasis on the basic approaches to the emergence of financial centres. After that it is asked whether Frankfurt meets the basic requirements for the concept of path dependence, i.e. that there are self-reinforcing mechanisms. After a positive answer to that, the development of Frankfurt as a financial centre is discussed as well as its role as a node in the world (financial) system today in chapter two. Chapter three provides some more or less speculative remarks about Frankfurt s future; the last chapter briefly summarises the findings of the paper

Real-time price discovery in stock, bond and foreign exchange markets

We characterize the response of U.S., German and British stock, bond and foreign exchange markets to real-time U.S. macroeconomic news. Our analysis is based on a unique data set of high-frequency futures returns for each of the markets. We find that news surprises produce conditional mean jumps; hence high-frequency stock, bond and exchange rate dynamics are linked to fundamentals. The details of the linkages are particularly intriguing as regards equity markets. We show that equity markets react differently to the same news depending on the state of the economy, with bad news having a positive impact during expansions and the traditionally-expected negative impact during recessions. We rationalize this by temporal variation in the competing "cash flow" and "discount rate" effects for equity valuation. This finding helps explain the time-varying correlation between stock and bond returns, and the relatively small equity market news effect when averaged across expansions and recessions. Lastly, relying on the pronounced heteroskedasticity in the high-frequency data, we document important contemporaneous linkages across all markets and countries over-and-above the direct news announcement effects. JEL Klassifikation: F3, F4, G1, C

Bigger Fish in Small Pond : The Interaction between Foreigners' Trading and Emerging Stock Market Returns under the Microscope

This paper provides the first study of foreign investors’ trading in a sizeable European emerging stock market, using a combination of daily and monthly complete data col-lected at the destination. It also introduces the structural conditional correlation (SCC) methodology to identify the contemporaneous interaction between foreign flows and returns. We show that global emerging market returns are an additional driver of foreign flows after controlling for global developed market returns. Foreigners do negative (positive)-feedback-trade with respect to local returns at the monthly (daily) frequency. SCC methodology shows that the standard assumption in the literature, that flows cause returns contemporaneously but not vice versa, is not justified, even at the daily fre-quency, making price impact estimates reported in previous literature questionable