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Subscribe to the OMFIF podcast for the latest news and insight on financial markets, monetary policy and global investment themes. Published weekly, the podcast features input from a range of academic experts, central bankers and investment professionals. Visit our website at www.omfif.org.
339 Episodes
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European fixed income has been 'normalising' over 2025. Inflation is stabilising, the European Central Bank has halted rates near neutral, spreads are tight but markets are steady. Yet political and fiscal divergences remain sharp within the European Union with Italian BTPs now regularly pricing through French OATs. The EU’s rapid expansion as a AAA issuer is altering Europe’s credit market structure and raising the prospect of a genuine euro safe asset.
Conor Perry, economist at OMFIF’s Economic and Monetary Policy Institute, is joined by Jeremy Cunningham, investment director at Capital Group, to examine these developments. They discuss OAT-BTP repricing, investor-base effects on yield sensitivity, the impact of unified EU issuance and the outlook for 2026.
Dennis Shen, chair of the macroeconomic council and lead global economist at Scope Ratings, joins Mark Sobel, OMFIF US chair, to discuss the global economic outlook entering 2026, prospects for the US, China, Europe and Japan, alongside the key global economic challenges and risks.
In 2015, almost 200 countries signed the Paris agreement in a landmark commitment to limit the impact of global warming. Ten years on, Rahul Ghosh, global head of sustainable finance at Moody’s Ratings, and Umar Ashfaq, research director for the Americas at the MSCI Institute, join Sarah Moloney, editorial director at OMFIF, to examine how much progress has been made in the decade since and whether there is still a place for such international agreements in a more divided world.
Stablecoins are dominating the headlines and policy-makers are responding rapidly. The instruments, though once primarily used as a trading pair for crypto-assets, are rapidly gaining a foothold in cross-border payments where their speed and low cost make them an attractive alternative in some corridors. Eyes are also on their potential adoption for wholesale settlement.
Thibault Pelé, head of product for digital currency at Worldline, joins Lewis McLellan, head of content at OMFIF's Digital Monetary Institute, to discuss the evolving uses of stablecoins and the promise this instrument shows in reshaping money.
Governments today face mounting pressure to deliver more with fewer resources. Yet the way public money is managed often leans towards expenditure control rather than investment in long-term socioeconomic outcomes. Even when innovative policies or technical solutions exist, implementation barriers frequently prevent good ideas from being translated into results.
Adam Chepenik, principal, government and public sector, and Andrew Kleine, managing director, government and public sector at EY, join Andrea Correa, senior economist at OMFIF, to discuss how governments can invest in outcomes, prepare for crises and make their financial choices more sustainable, impactful and politically appealing.
Money is arriving on blockchain. Whether that is in the form of stablecoins, tokenised deposits or central bank money, it has the potential to reshape the way we do business, both in our personal lives and in wholesale financial markets.
Zha Wenting (AC), Senior Digital Transformation Expert, Director of On-chain Finance Development at Huawei Digital Finance BU, joins Lewis McLellan, head of content of OMFIF's Digital Monetary Institute, to discuss the impact that on-chain cash is beginning to have, where it's going and what Huawei's role is.
Events and a series of unforced errors leave Europe in a precarious state. How will the half-built political project contend with hostile neighbours, economic rivals and disengaging former allies on the one hand, and internal arguments about money, governance and demography on the other?
David Marsh, OMFIF chairman, discusses his new book, Can Europe Survive? The Story of a Fractured Continent, with John Orchard, chairman of OMFIF's Digital Monetary Institute. They discuss the evolution of the Russo-German relationship, the competence and fragility of the European Central Bank and the financial arguments now heading over the horizon.
With Asia warming at twice the global average, the transition to net zero makes both social and economic sense for the region. Executive Director of the External Department at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Kenneth Hui, joins OMFIF's Editorial Director, Sarah Moloney, to discuss the HKMA’s approach to channelling capital to the sectors and regions that need it most.
Speaking in the wake of the super typhoon Ragasa and Hong Kong Green Week, they explore the shift in conversations from the ‘why’ to the ‘how’, the importance of adaptation and resilience measures as well as the September 2025 update to the Hong Kong Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance.
National financial infrastructure is undergoing perhaps its most rapid period of change in a generation. The needs and expectations of consumers and businesses are evolving to meet a new digital age, and payments systems must evolve to keep up. Among the key developments are increasing real-time payments, growing cross-border flows and the emergence of crypto-assets and stablecoins.
Frank Chen Lu, Solution Architect, Digital Finance BU at Huawei, joins Lewis McLellan, head of content at OMFIF's Digital Monetary Institute, to discuss these new dynamics and the policy response from the official sector.
Around the world, we’re seeing renewed attention to public debt and fiscal tightening, particularly as debt levels continue to rise in advanced economies. Governments face difficult trade-offs: cut spending on services, delay infrastructure investment or raise taxes.
Mauricio Zelaya, partner and national economics leader at EY Canada, and Marie Diron, managing director of sovereign risk at Moody’s Ratings, join Andrea Correa, senior economist at OMFIF, to talk about the relationship between fiscal management, fiscal capacity and the link between debt and public investment. They discuss how governments are balancing fiscal consolidation with essential investments, how borrowed funds can be used effectively to generate productive outcomes and what reforms enable governments to design fiscal strategies that are both responsible in the short term and sustainable over the long term.
Max Castelli, head of strategy for sovereign institutions at UBS Asset Management, joins Yara Aziz, senior economist at OMFIF, to discuss the future of the dollar in the global financial system. They explore UBS’s latest Reserve Management Survey findings, the dollar's resilience, the rise of gold, digital currencies and whether any challengers are truly positioned to take the dollar’s place.
Today’s tighter fiscal position around the world is pushing governments to find alternatives to finance their current expenditure and public investments, forcing them to think differently about how they fund and deliver essential services.
Dean Yates, regional market segment leader in government and health sciences, Oceania, at EY, and Rainer Kattel, deputy director and professor of innovation and public governance at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, join Andrea Correa, senior economist at OMFIF, to explore what it takes to make public investment work. They discuss the government's position and trade-offs around public investment, how to prioritise and measure investments for long-term impact and the role of innovation and governance in delivering value across health, education and infrastructure.
Richard Manley, chief sustainability officer at Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, joins Yara Aziz, senior economist at OMFIF, to discuss the key findings from a jointly published report, ‘Investing in a changing world: How public funds are addressing climate-related physical risks’. They explore the challenges public funds face in managing physical risk and where they see opportunities to build resilience.
Questions about the long-term viability of the dollar as the world’s supreme transaction and investment currency have been building up for years. But America’s chaotic foreign, economic and trade policies in the six months since Donald Trump returned to the White House have intensified doubts about whether the US currency will stay the course for the longer term. Will the US be knocked off its monetary pedestal in the next five years? And which currencies are in the running as the most potent rivals to the dollar?
Ellie Groves, head of strategy, official institutions group at State Street Investment Management, and David Marsh, chairman of OMFIF, debate the pros and cons of the dollar and other leading currencies, with reference to some of the themes in David’s new book, Can Europe Survive? The Story of a Continent in a Fractured World.
Although it frequently flies under the radar, ensuring central bank digital currencies are able to be used at point-of-sale is vital to their successful adoption.
Lars Hupel, chief evangelist for CBDC at Giesecke+Devrient, joins Lewis McLellan, head of content at OMFIF's Digital Monetary Institute, to discuss integrating CBDCs at point-of-sale, the strategic and economic benefits it will bring and the appropriate incentive structures to encourage it.
You can find more information in a paper authored by Lars Hupel, which unveils the world of CBDC wallets and their various forms. It illustrates different methods to initiate payments and crafts a conceptual model for point-of-sale transactions, designed with the specific features of retail CBDCs in mind.
Max Castelli, head of strategy for sovereign institutions at UBS Asset Management, joins Yara Aziz, economist at OMFIF, to unpack the global reserve response after 2 April – a date proclaimed by President Donald Trump as Liberation Day. They dive into US policy shifts, the dollar’s evolving role, rising demand for gold and whether Europe is finally ready to take the lead.
Zain Saidin, chief executive officer of Tassat, joins editor of OMFIF's Digital Monetary Institute, Lewis McLellan, to discuss the value of private blockchain networks for regulated finance.
The discussion covers how the transparency typical of public blockchains may present trade-offs where counterparties want to know each other but cannot know each other's trading behaviour. They also discuss Lynq – a real-time yield-bearing settlement network for digital assets, sitting on a private institutional network.
Ahead of the Blue Economy and Finance Forum taking place on 7-8 June 2025, Louise Heaps, Global Lead Sustainable Blue Economy, and Maud Abdelli, Greening Financial Regulation Initiative Lead at the Worldwide Fund for Nature, join OMFIF's Isabella Frymoyer to explore how financial institutions can advance ocean sustainability. The conversation highlights the key priorities, challenges and tools needed to scale investment in the blue economy, ultimately outlining the importance of encouraging blue sustainable growth.
Jonathan Griffiths, senior investment specialist at Capital Group, joins Arunima Sharan, senior economist at OMFIF’s Economic and Monetary Policy Institute, to unpack Capital Group’s 2025 Capital Market Assumptions and explore perspectives for institutional investors navigating an increasingly complex global investment landscape. They discuss themes ranging from opportunities in emerging market, to fixed income strategies and currency outlooks over the next two decades.
Instant payments systems are proliferating rapidly, and many central banks are working hard on interlinking them to enable quick, efficient cross-border payments. However, while IPS can provide extremely rapid, low-cost payments, they are not immune to fraud and erroneous payments. Given the speed of settlement, these problems can be even more difficult to resolve than they are for other payments systems.
Petia Niederländer, head of payments, risk monitoring and financial literacy at Oesterreichische Nationalbank, and Cian OMurhu, managing director and head of strategic transformation office at Swift, join Lewis McLellan, editor of OMFIF’s Digital Monetary Institute, to discuss the technical infrastructure required to address these issues, how they are being implemented and what work still needs to be done.
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