The Nordic economies combined will grow by 1% this year, rising to 1.9% in 2014 and 2.1% in 2015 expect a consensus of local economists. The projections mark a turning point although for some time the Nordic zone has enjoyed stronger economic performance than the wider eurozone region. Good news then for Goran Fors, head of custody at SEB since 2005, as SEB negotiates a sweeping changes across the securities services set. Can Fors lead SEB into further growth; or will regulation such as T2S sound the death knell for Europe’s specialist custodian providers?

Håkan Wohlin, global head of debt origination at Deutsche Bank states: “We have not seen this much activity from emerging markets ever. I think this trend will continue with sovereign, companies and banks wanting to raise capital to support growth and expand their investor base. We will not only see more big names from China and Asia in general but increasingly companies and governments from the frontier markets coming to Europe and US.”

It’s been a hectic year of change and reform in Russia as its National Settlement Depositary (NSD) has worked to eliminate the glitches (settlement delays, shareholder rights, counterparty risk and variable governance) that used to dog the Russian trading market.

The last year has been something of a curate’s egg for NASDAQ; even so the exchange has made important strides: not least moving to regain its crown as a leading venue for IPOs. Additionally, the exchange has successfully exported its technology credentials, with a series of high profile agreements to provide its technology platform to leading emerging markets exchanges. Where can it go from here? Andrew Neil reports.

Financial firms face an unprecedented extension of their risk management operations—not only are they responsible for what they do themselves, but they now have to carefully consider their suppliers and software vendors. In the post-trade arena, there continues to be a growing demand for fresh, insightful and intelligent software applications, particularly in corporate actions and custody. This year’s technology provider Information Mosaic has led the charge in the post trade space. Andrew Neil reports.