Year: 2026

The next era of cross-border payments

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The painfully slow process of moving money across borders has stalled businesses for decades. The TradFi route is not fit for purpose but has been tolerated until recent years because no credible alternative existed at scale. According to Oliver Wyman, businesses collectively pay $120bn a year to move money across borders. Until the creation of stablecoins, moving money internationally meant waiting days for settlement, losing margin to FX spreads you cannot see or predict, and routing payments through intermediaries that add cost and time at every step. Now, Juniper Research is forecasting that cross-border B2B payments settled in stablecoins will reach $5trn by 2035.

This is less a prediction than a consequence of a broken cross-border banking system. At first glance, $5trn seems an extraordinary figure, but it reflects how enterprise demand is finally being met by infrastructure and regulation. The advantages of stablecoin payments over traditional cross-border rails are tangible. Payments move 24 hours a day, rather than on banking schedules, and settlement takes seconds rather than days. Payment terms can also be programmed and automated.

For businesses already on stablecoin rails, the efficiency gains are measurable – EY-Parthenon’s research also shows that there is further demand for wider industry support as 81 percent of corporates say bank support for stablecoins is critical or important. Juniper Research’s near 400x projected growth for the industry makes a lot of sense when you consider that the market is still at its earliest institutional stage. A sharp increase in the value of cross-border payments will naturally follow high demand and the right conditions for adoption.

The bottleneck was never demand
While stablecoins seem new and shiny to some, enterprise interest has existed for years – but the industry was missing the infrastructure and regulatory certainty that is necessary for commitment. Across the US and Europe, regulation is either progressing or falling into place. Last year, we saw the GENIUS Act pass in the US and, right now, the CLARITY Act is being debated in the Senate. The Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) is live in Europe – over 40 Crypto-Asset Service Providers have been licensed as of March 2026.

If demand did not exist, financial institutions would not be investing

The market has crossed a commercial threshold. Landmark moves by major players have also signalled the shift from speculative use toward institutional payment infrastructure: Klarna recently built its own dollar-pegged stablecoin and Western Union committed to launching a stablecoin on Solana. Juniper predicts that 85 percent of all stablecoin transaction value in 2035 will come from international business-to-business activity. The direction of travel is clear – if demand did not exist, financial institutions would not be investing.

How to get adoption to skyrocket
For businesses with serious cross-border payment operations, the question has evolved from whether to implement stablecoin rails to which provider they trust to run them. The decision is harder than it sounds. In Europe, the MiCA grandfathering deadline of July 1, 2026 will mean providers without full authorisation must cease European operations from that date, with no grace period. But regulatory status is a baseline, not a differentiator. What separates credible infrastructure from everything else is whether it has been built to perform at enterprise scale: high transaction volumes, multiple jurisdictions, compliance across regulatory frameworks and integration with existing financial operations.

Confirmo Limited is authorised from the Central Bank of Ireland under both MiCA and as a Payment Institution under the Payment Services Regulations 2018 (PSR), covering the full stablecoin payment transaction lifecycle within a single regulated entity. More than half of enterprise non-users expect to adopt stablecoins within six to 12 months according to EY-Parthenon, and the providers ready to meet that demand are the ones who built the infrastructure before the forecasts made it look obvious.

The cross-border payments system has been extracting cost and time from businesses for decades. Stablecoins are not disrupting a system that works – they are replacing one that doesn’t. With regulatory frameworks now live across the US and Europe and the institutional capital flowing into payments infrastructure, the conditions for adoption at scale have finally arrived. The businesses that move now, while infrastructure is being built and competitive positions are still being established, will define what cross-border payments look like for the next decade.

How AI is reshaping corporate governance

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As artificial intelligence becomes embedded across every aspect of business, many organisations are understandably focused on the productivity gains the technology promises to deliver. Boards, too, are exploring how AI can streamline governance processes and help directors absorb information more efficiently. In a business environment defined by intense competition, geopolitical uncertainty and growing complexity, the appeal is obvious. Yet in my conversations with directors and executives over the past year, it has become clear that AI is forcing boards to confront a deeper issue – whether current governance models are genuinely equipped for the pace, complexity and uncertainty organisations now face. They are asking fundamental questions about how AI may reshape leadership itself – how decisions are made, how judgement is exercised, and whether boards are equipped for the pace and scale of change now taking place.

This matters because boards are already operating under considerable strain. As regulatory expectations and stakeholder scrutiny have increased, board packs have grown longer and agendas more crowded. Directors often describe evenings and weekends spent wading through hundreds of pages of pre-meeting material, only to leave the meeting feeling dissatisfied because insufficient time was spent discussing the issues most likely to shape the organisation’s future. Directors are expected to oversee an extraordinary breadth of issues, ranging from cyber risk and sustainability to workforce transformation and geopolitical instability, often with limited time and incomplete information. The result can be a form of cognitive overload in which boards become highly effective at reviewing detail, but less effective at creating space for strategic debate and meaningful challenge.

New categories of risk
AI offers an opportunity to reduce some of the administrative burden that has accumulated around governance over the past decade. But it also introduces entirely new categories of risk and complexity for boards. Unlike previous waves of enterprise technology, AI does not sit neatly within a single function – it influences hiring decisions, customer interactions, compliance and competitive strategy simultaneously, while also changing how organisations themselves process information and make decisions.

Governing AI therefore requires a different kind of conversation from the one many boards are used to having. It demands a more interdisciplinary, dynamic and forward-looking approach, as well as a greater willingness to interrogate assumptions and challenge consensus. The most effective boards are rarely those that simply move fastest. More often, they are the ones that can also sustain high-quality discussion under pressure, creating environments where alternative perspectives are surfaced early and where directors remain willing to question both the information presented to them and the reasoning behind it. This is precisely why some organisations are beginning to experiment with AI not simply as an administrative assistant, but as a strategic sparring partner for the board itself. Last month, Board Intelligence partnered with Lloyds Banking Group to explore how AI could help executives and directors interrogate assumptions, identify gaps in reasoning and surface perspectives that might otherwise be overlooked ahead of high-stakes discussions. One director described the experience to me as being less like using a chatbot and more like having access to an additional perspective in the room, one capable of challenging logic, highlighting blind spots and encouraging deeper scrutiny before decisions were made. The objective was not to replace human judgement, but to strengthen it.

Faster isn’t better
That distinction is important because much of the first generation of ‘AI for boards’ has focused primarily on precisely the opposite. While AI’s automation and summarisation capabilities undoubtedly save time, a weak board paper summarised by AI is still a weak board paper. Faster processing of information does not produce better judgement. The more exciting opportunity lies in augmentation, using AI to improve the quality of challenge, broaden perspectives and create more space for thoughtful discussion around the board table. This only works if boards resist the temptation to treat AI purely as a time-saving tool.

Governance has always depended on deeply human qualities that technology alone cannot replicate – curiosity, scepticism, integrity and the confidence to challenge consensus when necessary. If AI merely accelerates boards’ existing weaknesses, whether that is overconfidence or a reluctance to challenge prevailing views, then faster governance may simply become less effective governance delivered at greater speed.

As the outlook for growth falters and disruption intensifies, the quality of a board’s judgement will become a far greater competitive differentiator than it has been historically. The boards that benefit most from AI won’t be those that rely on it for answers, but those that use it to ask better questions, challenge assumptions and sharpen their thinking.

Business schools and the leadership divide

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Despite decades of diversity rhetoric, women remain markedly under-represented in business school leadership. Based on schools participating in our yearly survey, AACSB’s most recent data shows women comprise 41.8 percent of tenure-track faculty, 27.1 percent of full professors and 29.8 percent of deans. While these numbers have steadily increased over the years, there is still meaningful progress to be made in advancing the representation of women within business schools.

As institutions responsible for shaping inclusive, globally minded leaders, business schools have a duty to reflect those values in their own faculty. Students benefit most when they are taught by educators who represent the demographics and realities of the business world they will enter after graduation.

The challenges are multifaceted, spanning limited career pathways, persistent work-life balance pressures, and a lack of mentorship to develop the skills needed to progress into leadership roles such as dean. The data show that the drop-off doesn’t happen at entry; it happens on the path to leadership. Women are well represented in early academic roles yet remain significantly under-represented at professor and dean level.

This is not a pipeline issue, it is a progression issue, where capable leaders are not advancing at the same rate as their peers. Insights from business school deans reinforce why this matters. Leadership is not symbolic, it directly shapes institutional direction, from strategic priorities and resource allocation to culture and innovation.

The barriers are well understood. Entrenched networks, uneven access to sponsorship, and evaluation systems that reward traditional leadership profiles continue to slow advancement. At the same time, leadership itself is evolving. Deans point to the growing importance of adaptability, collaboration, and inclusive decision-making, capabilities that are strengthened through diverse leadership teams. When women are not advancing, business schools are not just missing representation; they are missing out on critical leadership capacity. The risk is strategic.

Schools that fail to fully leverage their talent risk weaker decision-making and a diminished ability to prepare graduates for a global, interconnected economy.

Leadership without trade-offs
One of the most persistent barriers to women’s advancement in business school leadership is not capability, but sustainability. The path to leadership has too often been shaped around expectations that leave little room for life outside of work, making it harder for many talented women to see themselves – or remain – on that path.

Insights from deans highlight that the role itself is becoming more complex and demanding, requiring constant availability, high visibility and significant personal investment. Without more flexible and human-centred approaches to leadership, institutions risk narrowing their own leadership pipelines by unintentionally excluding those who cannot, or choose not to, meet these expectations. Addressing this challenge starts with redefining what effective leadership looks like.

Women can lead at the highest levels and maintain full lives outside of work. There are practical steps that can make this a reality. More flexible leadership models, clearer expectations around workload, equitable parental and caregiving policies, and stronger support systems can all help ensure that leadership roles are accessible and sustainable. Transparency around career pathways, making those in the selection process aware of potential unconscious bias, and open conversations about balance also play a critical role in changing perceptions about what leadership requires. When business schools make space for both, they expand their talent pool, strengthen their leadership, and model the kind of inclusive, sustainable workplaces they seek to promote.

In an Insights from Deans report by AACSB in February 2024, we learned that 42 percent of first-time deans desire more mentorship coming into the role. AACSB heard this feedback and created the ‘Dean’s Journey’ in our AACSB Academy. This cohort-based programme, developed by business school deans, gives insights from experts, peer-to-peer connection, and preparation to lead. Across the first two cohorts, the participants are 45 percent female.

We are unlocking new paths for women to feel comfortable in their leadership abilities to continue taking the next step in their careers. AACSB is not just identifying the problem; we are taking steps to bridge the gap. As we see graduates come from our ‘Dean’s Journey’ programme, we are encouraged this will have a direct impact on bringing more women into business school leadership.

A call for accountability
The evidence is no longer in question. The talent exists, the ambition is present, and women across business schools are already demonstrating the capability to lead at the highest levels. Empowering women to lead means more than opening doors: it requires actively equipping them with the opportunities, networks, and confidence to step into leadership and shape the future of business education. It also means recognising and valuing diverse leadership styles that strengthen institutions.

Progress depends on sustained commitment, shared accountability, and a willingness to challenge long-standing norms that have limited leadership pipelines. The direction is clear. What matters now is ensuring that more women are not only prepared to lead but are empowered to do so.

Beer’s next growth story

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In supermarket aisles and across pubs, bars and restaurants today, lower- and no-alcohol options are becoming staples of the modern drinking landscape. Consumers are embracing moderation and driving the rapid expansion of the lower- and no-alcohol beverage market. For consumers seeking a lower- or no-alcohol drink, beer is the obvious choice.

With a lower alcohol content than most beverages in the category, beer is moderate by nature. Typically sold at or under five percent alcohol by volume (ABV), a beer contains significantly less alcohol than say, a Negroni, Martini or Old Fashioned, which are made with hard liquor at 20–30 percent ABV or more, or a glass of wine at 12 percent ABV.

But a beer is still a beer no matter how much alcohol it has. A unique interplay of malted barley sweetness, hop bitterness and yeast esters during fermentation make up the character of a beer, and brewers preserve this character in their lower- and no-alcohol alternatives in a way few other beverages can achieve.

The global beer industry is uniquely positioned to deliver on the cultural shift towards moderation that we are seeing today, and brewers around the world have risen to the occasion (see Fig 1). IWSR forecasts no-alcohol beer and cider will contribute nearly 70 percent of the overall no/low-alcohol growth between 2022 and 2026, while a report from the European Commission reveals beer and cider make up 97 percent of the EU’s lower and no-alcohol market.

Industry aligned to economic priorities
Today’s moderate drinking landscape has obvious benefits for policymakers’ public health objectives too. Substituting high-alcohol beverages, like hard liquor, with lower-alcohol options, like beer, is a time-tested, evidence-based way to improve public health outcomes.

A comprehensive study on the impact of alcohol policies in Russia by WHO Europe found policies shifting consumption away from high-strength alcohol beverages towards lower-alcohol beverages were associated with improving multiple public health indicators, while a study by the Portman Group revealed one in five (21 percent) of consumers in the UK who drank alcohol said their weekly consumption had decreased since first trying lower- and no-alcohol alternatives.

The beer industry also supports thriving communities. While many global industries can tout big contributions to global GDP, the beer industry lifts up local economies in a unique way. 86 percent of brewers’ supplier spending is in local markets. From hops and barley farmers to trucking companies to hospitality, beer is the backbone of a robust and varied value chain. The productivity of those employed by brewers is also significantly higher than the average worker, driving economic growth and income opportunities, particularly in developing nations. Oxford Economics found brewers generate $117,000 of GDP per worker in lower-income countries, more than 18 times the average.

Policymakers can ensure the beer industry continues to deliver positive outcomes

But a thriving community is about more than just economics. Pubs, bars and restaurants are at the heart of our communities, providing a positive space for people to come together, connect and create shared experiences in a tradition that dates back thousands of years. A strong beer industry is vital to prolonging the life of these businesses, which sit at the core of local communities around the world. Now that lower- and no-alcohol beers are available in most local establishments, the beer industry has helped make pubs, bars and restaurants more inclusive than ever before, as customers can still enjoy the custom of sharing a beer – and the individual, social and community benefits it brings – with or without alcohol.

Policymakers can support this industry
Beer supports positive public health outcomes, strong economies and thriving communities. And the regulatory environment can support the industry to do even more. We are calling for policymakers around the world to regulate alcohol according to beverage type and strength, which would encourage the production and consumption of lower alcohol-strength products like beer. Many OECD countries are already leading the way by applying lower excise tax rates to beer than to hard liquor and offering even lower rates for lower- and no-alcohol options.

By creating a supportive regulatory and fiscal environment for brewers to do business, policymakers can ensure the beer industry continues to deliver positive outcomes to local communities around the world.

The new gatekeeper of global finance

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I returned from Paris last month, having spent three days in rooms where the future of global finance was being quietly debated. Not by politicians, but by fintech executives, institutional investors and regulatory architects who are actually building it. What struck me most was the unanimity of the anxiety beneath the sophisticated technology on display. Operators from São Paulo to Singapore and from Dubai to Ho Chi Minh City all wanted US market access, but few knew how. That gap is about to narrow partially, creating both opportunity and risk.

For the better part of a century, US financial dominance rested on three interlocking pillars: the dollar’s status as a reserve currency, the depth of its capital markets, and an institutional infrastructure so entrenched that it became the default architecture for global trade. You did not choose to work within the American financial system. You simply did, because there was no viable alternative. Now, blockchain commoditises rails, replicates tokens and allows exchanges anywhere. The regulatory standard – the enforceable, globally legible rulebook – is the differentiator. This is what the Clarity Act aims to provide.

The Clarity Act’s global stakes
The Genius Act brought stablecoins under regulatory supervision and set reserve requirements for dollar-pegged digital currency. But it left most of the digital asset market – securities, commodities, DeFi, tokenised treasuries – in a legal grey zone, costing US and global enterprises billions in missed opportunity and confusion.

Compliance, executed well, is no longer a constraint on growth. It is the competitive advantage

The Clarity Act changes this. For the first time, US law will draw a definitive line between a digital security and a digital commodity, clarify the respective jurisdictions of the SEC and the CFTC, and create a coherent framework for exchanges, broker-dealers, and custodians. Crucially, it gives every enterprise outside the US – the Brazilian fintech, the Vietnamese payment company, the Dubai-based digital asset fund – a clear set of rules to align with before approaching a US institution.

In Paris, the reaction was not scepticism; it was relief. The demand for US market entry is profound. What has been missing is a door with a handle. American dominance won’t mean a monopoly. The EU’s MiCA, the UAE’s VARA, and Singapore’s MAS all offer a strong, attractive regulatory environment.

The US will win the battle for regulatory dominance as the Clarity Act will become the template other jurisdictions align with, because alignment means access. What American policymakers may cede is the battle for product innovation: the applications and platforms incubated in jurisdictions with lower friction and greater appetite for experimentation. This is not failure. It is a division of labour, one that must be accepted, because attempting to suppress innovation to protect legacy systems has already been tried. The market moved anyway.

The call to act, before the window closes
For every enterprise navigating this landscape, the imperative is not strategic; it is existential. Non-compliance does not look like a fine. It looks like paralysis: misaligned controls, transactions held or rejected while competitors move, credibility bleeding out at precisely the moment this market is accelerating. You are not paying a penalty; you are stuck, while deep-pocketed US investors onboard with your better-positioned rivals. They will not wait. There are other doors to knock on. The enforcement trajectory is unambiguous. In 2023, Binance paid $4.3bn, the largest Department of Justice corporate resolution in history at the time. In 2024, TD Bank settled for $3.1bn, becoming the largest US bank to plead guilty to a money laundering conspiracy. Even Revolut, celebrated as a model of fintech agility, was fined €3.5m for failures in transaction monitoring. These are not outliers. They are a pattern with a clear, accelerating direction of travel.

Over three decades of building technology for global financial institutions, I have watched compliance treated as a cost centre, an afterthought, and checked only after the deal closes. In the digital asset era, that model is obsolete. It is the single biggest differentiator separating institutions that will capture this market from those locked out of it. Compliance, executed well, is no longer a constraint on growth. It is the competitive advantage.

Do you know, before you transact, whether you are compliant? If the answer is anything other than an unequivocal yes, the window to fix that cheaply is closing faster than most people in Paris were willing to admit.

Could Universal Studios and Puy du Fou Transform UK Tourism?

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Almost 50 years ago, Philippe de Villiers gathered together hundreds of volunteers to create Cinéscénie, a live-action re-enactment of history and folklore from his part of France, a region called the Vendée. Quite unlike the ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’ motto that accompanies the revolution in a lot of France, in the Vendée region it was received with little enthusiasm, and in the process of uprising its inhabitants died in their thousands. De Villiers wants this recognised, which is partly what led him to create a large-scale performance, to ensure the story was told to future generations. Not a typical start to a fantastical theme park.

From its founding in the 1970s, that single re-enactment has grown into ‘the world’s biggest night-time show,’ and its home park a provider of dozens of eye-popping performances – world class in every sense of the word. Its name is Puy du Fou.

A leader in performance, spectacle and indeed customer experience, Puy du Fou is second only to Disneyland Paris as the biggest theme park attraction in France. It is a multi-million-pound business and tourism model, and it is currently under consultation to come to the UK.

There are two Puy du Fou parks already: the one in France founded in 1978, and a newer one in Spain since 2021. Both provide immersive, multi-award-winning, genuinely world-class shows telling famous historical legends and stories of the local area and beyond. When I say world-class, I mean it – Puy du Fou productions have won international awards for best shows; not best theme park shows, best shows. Their technical prowess and spectacle are preposterously good. The scale of them is life size or bigger – think exploding Viking ships and life-size castles appearing from nowhere. Visiting a Puy du Fou is a whistle-stop tour through famous and not-so-famous events in history, presented to spectacular effect.

Know your audience
The UK Puy du Fou consultation is being run with Cherwell Council in Oxfordshire, inviting perspectives from local people and businesses. Naturally there are objectors, but it would seem unlikely that the council will turn down the level of investment on offer, not only financially speaking but also in terms of regenerating the local environment. It sounds surprising but Puy du Fou evidence an improvement to the local environments of their parks in terms of site choice, tree planting, and biodiversity, delivering a net gain to the local environment. It is a pretty watertight and persuasive consultation package, having had 50 years of learning from their existing two parks, but the reality is that the council will only approve the park if it is felt to be financially and politically viable to develop this sort of attraction in their part of the UK.

It is a multi-million-pound business and tourism model

Interestingly, the proposed Cherwell site is within easy reach of Bicester Village, the second biggest tourist destination in the UK (after Buckingham Palace) for wealthy Chinese tourists. Indeed, the massive designer outlet hosts some seven million visitors every year and the Chinese represent the biggest demographic.

Marketed strongly in Mandarin online, particularly on Weibo, it has easy rail access from London and it is also close to the Cotswolds, which in turn has millions of tourists visiting every year. Make no mistake, there is already an abundance of disposable income in this area. A Puy du Fou, with its niche offering of historical and mythological re-enactments specific to its host country yet a quintessentially British experience, should appeal to international tourists but crucially, British ones as well.

Bringing Hollywood home
Those with a keen eye on the UK tourism industry will also be aware of the public consultation for a proposed Universal Studios to open in nearby Bedfordshire. The consultation website for this park states that a Special Development Order has been granted by the local authority, which ‘represents an important milestone for the project.’

The website itself states that 94 percent of the consultation responses have been in favour of the park; the UK tourism industry has arguably not had such a globally recognised attraction brand launching here since the opening of Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter, in 2012.

Much more of a classic theme park experience, with rides, rollercoasters, and movie set immersions, Universal Studios is a truly global brand with significant resources and experience that will know its UK market well. It is surely the better known of the two parks in the UK – indeed, Puy du Fou, while being the second-biggest attraction in France, somehow also manages to feel like a very well-kept secret. With the Universal name comes a global reputation it will need to live up to; with multiple stablemates in locations like California, Japan, and Singapore, the Orlando, Florida park is the largest (comprising three separate parks) and has long ranked among the world’s most popular tourist attractions. Attendance numbers have typically shown steady growth, peaking in 2019. The following year, however, brought an abrupt shift as the park faced months of closure and widespread travel lockdowns due to Covid, leading to a sharp decline in visitor numbers from which it has still not fully recovered.

That said, Forbes reports that over a million people from the UK alone visited Florida in 2024 – that figure is still nowhere near pre-pandemic levels, but if a proportion of those visitors could be tempted to stay at home and still have the theme park experience here in the UK, the number may fall further still. Amusement parks are big business and that trend is predicted to continue in the coming years (see Fig 1).

Tradition or ambition?
But what of the quintessentially British experience? Does the UK actually want gigantic theme parks? Perhaps one of the characteristics that makes the UK so attractive to tourists is the typical understated charm of so many of our offerings. Certainly that is what drives many to visit the Cotswolds and places like Devon, Dorset and Cornwall. That olde-worlde British charm feels much harder to come by in the peak of summer, however, and one has only to recollect the frenzied staycations of the lockdown years and the genuinely serious issues with flytipping and mess left behind in overrun beauty spots that simply could not cope with such an influx, to recognise some of the concerns that respondents to the theme parks’ consultations are expressing online.

Social and environmental concerns are being carefully considered and planned for in both consultations, and the parent companies are engaging with local government, community groups, and businesses to assuage fears around everything from firework noise to local employment offers. There are detailed plans for the build phases, the customer experience during visiting hours, and longer term once anticipated peak guest numbers have been reached after opening.

Any large enterprise like a theme park requires enormous numbers of staff, both front of house and behind the scenes, onstage and in the back office. Excitingly, both parks also use actors and performers to enhance the visitor experience. With Puy du Fou especially, this is a central part of their brand, and they have specific career enhancement pathways that enable people to join, say, hospitality, but receive on-the-job training and development to join the ranks of highly skilled performers that make the shows so breathtaking and unique to watch.

Harry Potter Studios, Bicester and Bedford – you can drive from any one of these sites to another in about an hour. That is more than doable from a holiday perspective. When families from the UK visit Florida, it is common to plan entire holidays around the various parks. Big-ticket theme parks here in the UK such as Universal Studios and Puy du Fou could offer UK tourism a complete portfolio of visitor experiences that are well-connected (and hopefully, well thought out) and that could take the UK offering beyond the realms of quaint Britishness and into truly global tourism.

International tourists will keep coming to the UK, but whether the country’s own public has a sustainable appetite for this remains to be seen. With the cost of living continuing to bite more with every passing year, disposable income is not abundant for most UK working families, but perhaps this is in fact a reason for people to get behind projects like Universal Studios and Puy du Fou. Why spend hundreds of pounds on unreliable flights abroad that might never take off given global instability, when you can simply staycation closer to home? Added to the already impressive combination of luxury retail experiences, historical wonders like Stonehenge, and classic British attractions like Buckingham Palace, parks like Puy du Fou and Universal Studios could mean the feeling of being transported to another world might soon happen right on your doorstep.

A job apocalypse?

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In 2023, Goldman Sachs estimated 300 million jobs across the world could be exposed to artificial intelligence.

More recently, a separate analysis by the investment bank found that AI could displace six to seven percent of the US workforce if it is widely adopted, while a McKinsey paper found that 30 percent of the hours currently worked across the US could be automated by 2030.

A report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) meanwhile took it a step further, declaring that “five years from now – or perhaps further in the future – 10 to 15 percent of jobs in the US could be eliminated.” The firm concluded that “remaking the workforce is a competitive imperative.” The shift has been described as the cognitive, white-collar equivalent of the Industrial Revolution.

Major tech firms have already begun making large-scale job cuts while simultaneously pumping large sums into AI. In February, Jack Dorsey announced his fintech firm, Block, would be slashing its workforce from 10,000 to 6,000 people, directly citing intelligence.

“We are already seeing that the intelligence tools we are creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company,” wrote Dorsey. “I had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now.”

In April, Meta announced it planned to cut around 8,000 (10 percent) of its employees to “offset the other investments we are making,” in the words of chief people officer Janelle Gale. Last year, Microsoft made more than 15,000 job cuts while committing $80bn to AI investments. Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy has meanwhile said he expects the conglomerate to “reduce its total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.”

But as these firms bet on an AI-driven future with slimmer teams and higher productivity, there are multiple questions; how realistic is this vision, are consumers ready to put their trust in bots, and what might it mean for the future workforce if concepts that were once purely the stuff of sci-fi come to fruition?

All hail the AI agents
Underpinning much of the speculated AI-driven workforce of the future is agentic AI, or AI agents – that is, agents that can act on content produced by generative AI to plan, make decisions and execute tasks. Going beyond the limits of generative AI by taking a more active, human-like role, they can come in digital form – such as chatbots and coding agents – or physical embodiments, including robots, drones and self-driving cars.

AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white collar jobs

These tech-forward ‘agents’ are already making an early-stage appearance; one example is OpenClaw, which launched in November 2025 and, as per its website, “clears your inbox, sends emails, manages your calendar, checks you in for flights. All from WhatsApp, Telegram, or any chat app you already use.” Firms in both the tech sphere and beyond are starting to capitalise on the hype.

In May, Citigroup announced Arc, a new platform that will “allow the bank to build and scale AI agents across the firm,” in the words of a recent statement. “These agents enhance human judgment by taking on tasks such as research, synthesis, preparation and execution, reducing manual effort and accelerating how teams operate day to day,” it reads.

The same month, AI lab Anthropic released a series of new agents (or AI systems) for the financial services industry that can carry out tasks with limited human intervention – including building a pitchbook, auditing statements and drafting credit memos.

JPMorgan is going full steam ahead in its plans for agentic AI. Chief analytics officer, Derek Waldron, told the CNBC last year that in its future vision, “every process is powered by AI agents, and every client experience has an AI concierge.” Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy outlined a similar premonition, declaring in a statement in 2025: “There will be billions of these agents, across every company and in every imaginable field.”

An ongoing need for humans
The general messaging from many experts in the industry is that the rise of these agents would entail a combination of human and AI work, providing workers with more time to do (currently) human-only tasks. “Even as these systems become more capable, it remains critical that humans stay in the loop, setting direction, applying judgment and remaining accountable for outcomes,” Sida Peng, Research Economist at Microsoft, told World Finance.

Even highly skilled and highly valued positions are now under threat

“What that means for the workforce is that people spend less time on repetitive execution and more time directing work, making decisions and managing outcomes across teams of agents and humans.”

It’s not just about automating existing human tasks but augmenting them, according to Peng. “One of the biggest opportunities AI presents is the ability to expand what people and organisations are capable of,” he says. “In our Work Trend Index research, 58 percent of workers said they are producing work they could not have done a year ago, rising to 80 percent among Frontier Professionals [AI-first employees using agents to ‘augment or automate’].”

The rise of the ‘feeling economy’
This certainly sounds promising – and the fundamental shift in how we work could mean mass new job creation. A recent McKinsey paper, The agentic organisation: Contours of the next paradigm for the AI era, points to ‘M-shaped supervisors’ and ‘T-shaped experts.’ “New profiles are emerging, such as agent orchestrators, who design and supervise agent workflows; hybrid managers, who lead blended human-agent teams; and AI coaches, who help employees integrate AI into daily work,” wrote the researchers.

Another study, Artificial intelligence, workers, and future of work skills, meanwhile highlights ‘trainer’ roles, where human workers teach AI systems how to perform (including curating data); ‘explainer’ roles, requiring communication and technical skills to explain AI output for end users; and ‘sustainer’ roles to help make sure AI systems in organisations operate fairly and transparently. This shift could mean ‘human’ skills become increasingly in demand, according to many experts. A recent independent paper, How AI influences the experience of work: upsides and downsides for workers, describes this as a new ‘feeling economy,’ with interpersonal skills, empathy and social and emotional intelligence at the core.

Pencheng Shi, Associate Dean for Research and Program Director at the Rochester Institute of Technology, agrees. “What I have seen is that employers are starting to look for people who are much better in softer skills,” he says. “These include leadership, organisation, communication and really understanding the human side.”

He believes competing with AI could bring other benefits too – challenging us to go beyond what AI can currently do and bring elements that are, for now at least, uniquely human. “We need to push ourselves and recognise what makes us different – from each other but also from the machines,” he says. “Work that has your own unique signature and your own ideas is what will stand out, and what makes every one of us different. As people we bring different perspectives, and I think that’s still, for now at least, a human-only strength.”

The entry-level threat
But while this human enhancement is an exciting prospect, there are likely to be significant challenges if and as we move towards what McKinsey researchers recently described as “the largest organisational paradigm shift since the industrial and digital revolutions.” Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei told Axios last year that while AI currently is indeed augmenting human roles, the balance could soon tip into automation – with entry-level roles among the hardest likely to be hit (with many entry-level admin tasks such as legal admin, data entry and simple coding already automatable with AI).

“AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white collar jobs and cause an unemployment surge of 10 to 20 percent in the next one to five years,” he said in the report, adding that AI firms and governments need to stop “sugar-coating” the impending era and take action to raise public awareness of the very real threat. “Most people are unaware that this is about to happen,” he said. “It sounds crazy, and people just don’t believe it. We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming.”

A McKinsey survey in 2025 on the new era of work found that 51 percent of organisations reported generative AI was reducing their need for entry-level positions. Shi says he has witnessed a similar trend in the computer programming field. “I am seeing that the big computer companies are only hiring people with 10–15 years’ experience and PhD graduates,” he says. “On the other hand, graduates with bachelor’s and master’s degrees are facing tremendous employment challenges that were unimaginable only three years ago. So even highly skilled and highly valued positions are now under threat.”

Widening the social gap
This narrowing of the workforce is perhaps inevitable if the AI agent vision becomes reality. “In the agentic organisation, structure will pivot to small, outcome-focused agentic teams,” researchers wrote in the McKinsey report on the ‘agentic organisation.’ The analysis found a human team of just two to five people could oversee an agent factory of between 50 and 100 “specialised agents running an end-to-end process such as onboarding a customer, launching a product or closing the books.”

Roles and sectors especially at risk have been widely publicised. A Microsoft report last year ranked the 40 jobs with the highest ‘applicability score’ (or crossover) with generative AI, putting historians, writers, customer service reps, telephone operators, sales reps, journalists, mathematicians, data scientists and personal financial advisors high on the list.

As the list suggests, it’s not just ‘knowledge’ sectors likely to feel the impact; lower-wage workers are especially at risk, according to a 2024 McKinsey analysis, A new future of work: the race to deploy AI and raise skills in Europe and beyond. Researchers found that in Europe, workers in the two lowest-wage-bracket jobs were three to five times more likely to have to change occupations than higher earners; in the US, this figure surged to 10 to 14 times.

Many believe this could cause a concerning gap between those possessing AI and other in-demand skills in the ‘agentic’ era, and those who don’t – and are underlining the importance of educating every area of society in order to democratise the market. “Workers will need to acquire new skills to transition to better-paying work,” wrote the McKinsey researchers in the Race to deploy AI paper. “If that doesn’t happen, there is a risk of a more polarised labour market, with more higher-wage jobs than workers and too many workers for existing lower-wage jobs.”

A new economic model?
While some have argued AI could actually shrink the disparity by making skills more accessible to everyone who has access to the intelligence, Shi believes the social and cultural upheaval is one of the biggest risks we face as AI grows in its dominance – and that wealth distribution will be key if the more negative forecasts become reality. “I think if we don’t change the way we distribute wealth, the social bifurcation in the AI era could get drastically worse,” he says. “I think societies need to have a safety net in place to support those who may pay a bigger price.”

Anthropic’s Amodei likewise believes these discussions are of the essence. “It is going to involve taxes on people like me, and maybe specifically on the AI companies,” he told Axios, floating the idea of a ‘token tax’ on AI revenues. Earlier this year, Elon Musk proposed the idea of a ‘Universal High Income’ to counteract any potential large-scale, AI-induced unemployment. A development on the earlier economic idea of ‘Universal Basic Income’ (UBI), this assumes that AI would lead to a significant increase in productivity, boosting the economy and creating enough wealth to go around.

“Universal High Income via checks issued by the federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI,” he tweeted. “AI/robotics will produce goods and services far in excess of the increase in the money supply, so there will not be inflation.” While it’s an interesting, potentially utopian idea, some have already posited issues around its predecessor, UBI; this would likely bring further challenges still.

Psychological threats
In any case, it’s not just the financial impact that needs to be considered if this fundamental transformation comes about in the way many are predicting it will. McKinsey’s A new future of work paper claimed that up to 12 million occupational transitions could be required in Europe alone as a result of AI – double the pre-pandemic rate. That is likely to bring a significant psychological toll, especially among societies where identity and self-worth are often synonymous with work, career status and progression.

In a study, Gen AI and the psychology of work, researchers Erik Hermann, Stefano Puntoni and Carey Morewedge looked at how generative AI in the workplace can “frustrate basic psychological needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness.”

“Unlike previous technologies, GenAI can demonstrate cognitive, creative and interpersonal capabilities that challenge traditional human–machine boundaries and redefine the knowledge, task, and social characteristics of work,” they wrote. They outlined the need for employers and employees to address these threats, fostering “human-centred” workplaces to balance the benefits and risks of AI.

The potential psychological impact isn’t just limited to identity, of course; with ever-greater reliance on LLMs and other forms of generative AI, are we dumbing down our skills, especially as younger generations grow up around it?

“I believe this is the most challenging question,” says Shi. “I think if Google Maps or GPS is an example, I think we could lose those skills or cognitive thinking ability. I think this is something we have to find ways to address.”

In a recent study published in The Lancet, a group of experienced doctors were given AI tools to help with diagnosis in colonoscopies. After they returned to human-only diagnosis following the three-month trial, their performance had dropped from before they had started using it. “This was a period of just a few months,” says Shi. “So if you scale that up, it is a little alarming.”

An unpredictable future
All of this is based on the assumption that AI continues to advance at its current rate, of course – and largely depends on the development of agentic AI. How advanced agentic AI really gets is a key question that even experts right now can’t fully be sure of. “So far, AI agents are still put together by humans for intended purposes,” says Shi. “It is hard to predict if they could become fully autonomous – including in mission critical situations such as military operations.”

If such agents were to become more advanced, to what level they would be trusted to make high-level decisions is another key obstacle. “AI could make decisions in critical situations such as military operations in milliseconds or nanoseconds,” says Shi. “They could arguably make fewer, less severe mistakes than humans. But what is the right way? These are fascinating ethical, legal and moral questions.

“I think there needs to be a global consensus to ensure AI isn’t used for bad outcomes,” he says. “AI could be more dangerous than nuclear weapons if there aren’t guardrails in place to ensure it is used for positive, not negative, outcomes.”

There are multiple other risks and roadblocks to overcome, of course – from bias in AI algorithms to how much trust consumers will have in AI, alongside ongoing inaccuracies and ‘hallucinations’ (or false information, disguised as accuracy) still sometimes seen in LLMs. And as with every prediction, where any of this really goes is anyone’s guess until it actually happens. “The story of humanity is one of evolution and replacement,” wrote the researchers in Gen AI and the psychology of work. “Many skills and jobs will be replaced by GenAI. Organisations and workers will adapt, as they have in response to earlier technological innovations, creating demand for and developing new skills and roles.”

While this may well be true – and while the raft of newly created jobs could go at least some way in mitigating the impact – re-training displaced workers to take them up will be a race against time if AI continues apace (and it is growing rapidly; McKinsey analysis found that AI systems could potentially complete four days of work without supervision by 2027).

AI may well bring net good and provide a major boost to economies. It could save some of the greatest challenges of our time, from climate change to cancer. But as with any major economic revolution, governments, businesses and individuals need to prepare themselves for an unpredictable ride that could lead in many different directions and to many variable outcomes.

Now is the time for tech companies, business leaders and policymakers to take control of which way it goes – for the future of not only the workforce but the very identity and humanity by which we live our day-to-day.

Can private capital save development?

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From her office in Delhi, Dr Nisha Dhawan is doing something her predecessors at EMpower never did: running a global foundation from the Global South. The new president and CEO of the New York-headquartered foundation, which was set up 25 years ago by emerging markets investment professionals to channel money back into the regions generating their returns, was never asked to relocate. That, she says, is the point, and it is a recognition of the importance of leadership that’s close to the people an organisation is helping.

“I was never asked to get on a plane and move to London or move to New York,” she says. “And that, I think, is not only different for EMpower, but it is different for the sector as a whole.” Her appointment lands at an awkward moment for development finance. Official development assistance from OECD donor countries fell 23.1 percent in real terms in 2025 to $174.3bn, according to preliminary data published by the OECD in April – the steepest single-year drop on record. The US alone drove three-quarters of the decline, falling by 56.9 percent.

At the same time, investment capital is flowing back. US ETFs focused on EM stocks absorbed almost $31bn over the year, according to estimates from Strategas Securities.

Investment, philanthropy or a hybrid
The World Bank has put the financing gap needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 at around $4trn. But can private capital, whatever form that may take, whether it is investment, philanthropy or some hybrid, meaningfully fill a gap of that scale?

Dhawan, who started at Deutsche Bank and Barclays in London before completing a PhD at IIT Delhi, has spent 14 years inside EMpower watching the answer evolve.

“It is absolutely possible,” she says of philanthropy stepping into the vacuum. “It is amazing to see how the philanthropic sector has stepped up, namely individuals. I feel like there is a lot more risk capital, for lack of a better word, coming from individuals than we have ever seen. And corporates are really thinking through their role, their responsibility in what it means to be giving back in the markets they are investing in.”

It is amazing to see how the philanthropic sector has stepped up

EMpower has deployed over $60m across nearly 400 locally run organisations in 15 countries since 2000. But what EMpower brings to the table is more than just capital, it is a different model of sustainable giving, and what that kind of philanthropy can do, Dhawan argues, is sit beside investment capital rather than replace public funding.

“We know that top down investment doesn’t work,” she says. “If we flip the script where that top down which is necessary and non-negotiable investment in the emerging markets is clubbed together with meaningful, strategic, effective philanthropy at the local grassroots level. That is where the magic happens, because that is where they meet in the middle. And that is where you are going to see the needle moving in emerging market countries.”

Almost 70 percent of EMpower’s money comes from financial services, raised largely through galas and donor networks in London, New York and Singapore, but the granting decisions are kept local. Country teams based on the ground identify and back local organisations directly, and partners are funded for 10 years rather than the one- or two-year cycles typical of the sector. In India, for example, the final call on which new organisations to bring into the portfolio sits with EMpower’s youth fellows. These are young people from the communities the foundation serves.

Investment strategy
Of course, it is not just in India that EMpower taps into the knowledge of the people it is helping. In Mexico, fellows are helping design the investment strategy in the country. In South Africa, a cohort is shaping how mental health programming gets embedded across the regional portfolio. And in Indonesia, fellows have helped build a secular and reproductive health curriculum that is now used across grantee partners in the greater Jakarta area. “It is young people creating a curriculum that is then embedded across several of our organisations,” Dhawan says. “Expertise lies in the hands of the people that we most want to serve.”

Dhawan rejects the sector’s habitual obsession with scale in numbers. She points to the Antarang Foundation, whose school-to-work modules the Indian government now runs across six states; Virlanie in the Philippines, working with young people born on the streets; and a partner in Argentina that helped embed mental health programming across Buenos Aires.

“Success can be depth and it can be influence and influencing others in a meaningful way,” she says. “The greatest cream that rises to the top is that for us success looks like sustainability.” That meeting point between commercial and concessional capital is where investment managers like Triodos Investment Management are operating.

Triodos recently signed an agreement with the Austrian Development Bank and with FMO. Their investment will be integrated into the Hivos-Triodos Fonds, a fund that will then be used to deploy capital into agriculture, renewable energy and the like.

Maritza Cabezas, senior investment strategist, says one of the ways the group can create greater impact is by “collaborating with institutions whose sources of funding can be cheaper than ours, and in that way getting more attractive investments for our clients. It has to be at the lowest cost possible but have the highest impact possible, and therefore we find these partnerships through blended finance quite attractive.”

Cabezas adds: “We have several examples of how we work with different development financial institutions to finance projects that need attractive funding costs in order to be viable. We finance agriculture projects in Ghana that use technology in the agricultural sector.” But there are challenges. She says that because large development finance institutions are very demanding, their requirements can be challenging for the smaller investees Triodos funds in emerging economies.

Considering the impacts
Another challenge is the existence of non-like-minded investors that do not consider the impact they are having in emerging markets. Because the cost of considering impact isn’t transparent, returns of those who are doing harm to people and the planet can seem higher. Therefore, it can be difficult to attract the capital that is needed to invest in areas that Triodos prioritises, such as financial inclusion or biodiversity.

For EMPower there is another difficulty to attracting capital. Its giving largely tracks the financial markets its donors work in, with the foundation feeling the 2008 and 2013 downturns clearly. But institutional funders, where roughly 30 percent of its funding comes from, provides a counterweight to market cycles and lets the organisation back its boldest ideas.

What we want to make sure is that this time no one is left behind

“Ford Foundation, Co-Impact, SIF, all of these organisations who have the technical wherewithal, but also the gravitas, have enabled us to try out our boldest ideas, whether that is girls making the final decisions about our grant making, or whether that is bringing together youth fellows to decide curricula,” Dhawan said. Adam Heuman, vice president of global development at EMpower, agrees and recalls what the organisation’s co-chair Mary-Therese Barton, who is also CIO for fixed income at Pictet Asset Management, says.

“The way she puts it is that emerging markets are back as an asset class. And that is something to really celebrate. What we want to make sure is that this time no one is left behind,” he says. “We hope that there is a boost to what we are able to do in terms of capital inflows. But how we use that is to make sure that no young person gets left behind.”

One way Dhawan wants to ensure that is done, and other investors also think about it as well, is by applying a gender lens to every single investment decision.

“We can’t talk about moving the needle in a market and seeing overall GDP going up if we are not considering the people that live within it,” she says. “And we can’t consider the people that live within it if we are not meaningfully double clicking on the lived realities and the barriers, the additional barriers that women and girls face.” She adds: “If we start thinking about young people who are not in education, in entrepreneurship or in technical training, and we break down that number, very often, it is a woman or a girl. If everybody got to start thinking about disaggregating for gender in a meaningful way, or even just assuming the gender lens, it would change the planet.”

The superhub race for global wealth

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To walk through Hong Kong’s Central District is to feel a city that never stops transacting. Hong Kong’s and Singapore’s skylines speak the language of prosperity. Beneath the glass and steel, a question emerges: where will global capital choose to live next? Early morning Hong Kong hits you before you clear the MTR barriers. Humidity rises off Victoria Harbour as Star Ferries surge across the water. The smell of gai daan jai mixes with diesel.

Elevated walkways funnel suited crowds towards Exchange Square. Brokers bark in Cantonese, chasing the first deal.

Four hours south, Singapore greets you with a different intensity. Quieter, more controlled, efficient. The skyline sharper, air cleaner, the streets meticulously ordered. In Raffles Place, the soundscape softens: air-con hum, polished shoes on marble, the low murmur of wealth managers easing clients into tax-efficient structures. Where Hong Kong vibrates, Singapore glides. The choice is no longer between cities, but how to balance both. Bloomberg Intelligence projects that both cities will surpass Switzerland to become the world’s fastest-growing cross-border wealth hubs.

Anatomy of a superhub
A superhub attracts capital and talent during geopolitical instability. Success rests on a powerful trifecta: quality of life, career opportunity and proximity to the engines of global finance. April’s 2026 Numbeo Quality of Life Index ranks Singapore ahead of Hong Kong (159.08 to 130.75). While Singapore leads in purchasing power and lower pollution, Hong Kong remains a competitor in safety and climate. Hong Kong operates under Common Law, an asset for international contracts. Its regulatory direction increasingly aligns with Mainland policy priorities, creating a market defined by speed and high potential, but also volatility. Singapore, dubbed Asia’s Switzerland, offers neutrality and predictability. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is proactive and transparent. Governance has shifted from back-office necessity to strategic asset. “Governance is no longer a framework you set and forget,” says Ken Ong, managing director at Morgan McKinley, Singapore. “With MAS updating regulations frequently, compliance has shifted from a support function to a core, resilient part of business.”
 

Hong Kong

1891 – HKSE established
Foundations of Hong Kong’s financial markets

1970s – Capital-market rise
Emerges as one of Asia’s most liquid markets

1983 – Dollar peg
HKD linked to the US dollar

1997 – Handover
Retains common law under ‘one country, two systems’

2000s – Mainland integration
Offshore RMB hub and gateway to China

2010s – IPO dominance
HKEX becomes a leading global listing venue

2020s – Turbulence and resilience
Retains role as China’s ‘super connector’

2026 – Renewed momentum
IPO recovery and capital-market rebound

 

Hong Kong is experiencing a resurgence. The ‘Top Talent Pass Scheme’ has stabilised the workforce with new talent inflows. Singapore is winning the family office race. Its 13O and 13U tax incentives, combined with strong governance and green finance, make it the preferred base for multi-generational wealth. Jeremy Cheng, Adjunct Assistant Professor at CUHK and Principal at Lansberg Gersick Advisors, explains that “families are increasingly embracing a ‘Barbell Strategy’ in wealth management.” “Establishing a satellite office in a new jurisdiction is frequently the first time a rising-generation member assumes a true operator role,” says Cheng. “If the incumbent generation builds wealth through concentration in specific industries, the rising generation is focused on preservation through portfolio transformation.” This shift is accelerating direct investment into AI, biotech and transition finance.

Hong Kong’s pressure points
• Mid-level talent shortages persist despite aggressive recruitment schemes
• Capital flows remain exposed to geopolitical and Mainland policy shifts
• 35 percent of firms support AI upskilling, risking long-term productivity

AI and the next decade
The GFCI 39 report ranks Hong Kong first globally for fintech, driven by its AI readiness and integration with the GBA tech cluster. AI may be the defining factor. Nine in 10 Hong Kong financial institutions are deploying or piloting AI. “Hong Kong’s adoption is intensifying but remains focused on tactical AI tools,” says Iain Bonner-Fomes, Chief Commercial Officer at KEY Smart Technologies. “Hong Kong doesn’t have the same problems as Singapore, so its uptake ought to be different. Singapore’s largest problem is the capacity to grow its business while constrained by its geographical size.”

Yet, Bonner-Fomes believes Singapore is ahead: “We are seeing the government there forming strong partnerships with businesses. In Hong Kong, that isn’t happening. It is more of an individual effort. It will be relatively easy to catch up.” As Singapore consolidates its status as Asia’s anchor of stability, Hong Kong mounts a comeback. It is a contest shaping the next era of global finance. Hong Kong rose as a capital-markets gateway to China. Singapore’s strength came from regulatory stability and geopolitical neutrality.

Wong Joo Seng, Chairman of the Singapore International Chamber of Commerce (SICC), explains, “Singapore serves as a global and regional base, while Hong Kong offers proximity, market understanding and connectivity into Mainland China.” This enables businesses to bridge both ecosystems with greater precision and confidence.

The April 2026 partnership between the SICC and the Federation of Hong Kong Industries (FHKI) is a proof of concept. Wong explains: “We are creating pathways into the Greater Bay Area, leveraging Hong Kong’s role as a gateway into mainland China. SICC aims to create a reciprocal membership framework, where member companies from both organisations are better positioned to navigate market entry, build partnerships and expand across each other’s markets.”

The MOU cements the emerging ASEAN–GBA corridor. Linking ASEAN growth to GBA innovation, Wong notes, “the partnership is about turning access into advantage – helping companies move faster, partner smarter and scale with confidence in one of the world’s most dynamic economic regions.” At a private capital level, the same logic is beginning to take shape. Sophisticated families increasingly separate where capital is preserved from where it is deployed.

Singapore’s pressure points
• Rising compliance and operating costs are increasing pressure on large funds
• Critical shortage in AI-specialised roles, driving up overheads
• KYC standards can push onboarding times to nine months

The new geography of power
Both centres serve different needs, shaped by geography, purpose and alignment. Hong Kong remains the gateway and a natural base for China-centric priorities. It is the only international financial centre with direct access to Mainland China’s capital markets, the GBA and the world’s largest offshore renminbi pool. Singapore is the gateway to ASEAN, a preferred hub for Southeast Asian flows and growing links to India and the Middle East.

The latest GFCI results show razor-thin margins. Professor Michael Mainelli, Chairman of Z/Yen Group and index co-creator, explains, “GFCI 39’s one-point gap between Hong Kong (765) and Singapore (764) is less a story of convergence than of compression at the top. The real signal lies in the sub-indices: marginal shifts across instrumental factors such as business environment, human capital and sectoral specialisation are now decisive, suggesting not a single ‘superhub’ emerging, but differentiated excellence within a tightly packed elite.”

Hong Kong’s momentum is visible across major indicators. More than 450 IPO applications are in the pipeline, expected to exceed 2025’s figures, renewing confidence in its capital markets. Hong Kong recorded 5,221 start-ups in 2025, an 11 percent YoY increase. HSBC’s third Global Investment Summit brought together over 1,500 institutions and 5,200 industry leaders. As Maggie Ng, CEO of HSBC Hong Kong, noted in her closing remarks, the city has demonstrated resilience despite market instability. Large-scale events reinforce Hong Kong’s role as the superconnector between China and the world. Cheng notes that high-growth capital is deployed in AI and biotech, where NextGen leaders see opportunities for returns and influence over the future of the global economy.

 

Singapore

1965 – Independence
Singapore prioritises finance and trade

1971 – MAS established
Centralised monetary regulation

1970s–80s – Asian Dollar Market
Global banks drawn to stability

1990s – Wealth-management expansion
Emerges as a private-banking hub

1997 – Asian financial crisis
Stability reinforced during crisis

2008 – Global financial crisis
Safe-haven capital inflows accelerate

2010s – Tech-finance expansion
Investment in digital finance and RegTech

2026 – Safe-haven consolidation
Family-office boom and neutrality strengthen position

 

Singapore’s strength lies in its institutional clarity. The city has built a professionalised ecosystem for family offices. A generational shift reshapes how wealth is managed. “ESG and sustainability are now seen as primary drivers of long-term outperformance,” says Cheng. As family offices compete with venture capital firms for talent, Singapore’s evolution from wealth centre to innovation allocator accelerates. Beyond family offices, multinationals are responding to this stability premium. Singapore’s emergence as a dominant APAC headquarters hub is reshaping its talent base. Ong notes that the seniority of roles has shifted: “Ten years ago, it was just a Head of Compliance in Singapore. Now, we are seeing APAC Heads based here.” He notes, “Over the last two to three years, we have seen more headquarters moving into Singapore.”

Google opened its first Singapore office in 2007 with 24 employees; today, its purpose-built Asia-Pacific headquarters houses nearly 3,000. Dyson’s 2022 relocation of its global HQ from the UK to Singapore echoes this future-proofing. Yet growth faces a bottleneck: Morgan McKinley’s 2026 Singapore Salary Guide states that employers continue to face a shortage of skilled professionals, especially in AI, data, cybersecurity and sustainability. Singapore’s long game: a safe-haven model built on predictability and the ability to attract senior decision-makers.

Two cities, two futures
The dual-hub model could define the next decade of global finance. Singapore provides the stability of treasury, governance and preservation. Hong Kong delivers the velocity of capital raising, liquidity and access to the Chinese growth engine. One refines the plan; the other accelerates it. As evening settles over Hong Kong, the city shifts into its nocturnal rhythm. Trams hum past towers lit with the residue of the trading day. The Symphony of Lights dances over the skyline. A choreography of colour and motion mirroring the city’s economic temperament.

Singapore moves more deliberately. The Night Safari opens as Hong Kong’s markets exhale. Across the bay, the Supertrees glow in a measured sequence. These are not rivals, but two superhubs with distinct philosophies. The advantage belongs to firms and investors able to move between both with precision. As Cheng puts it: “The most successful leaders will be those who weave both Singapore and Hong Kong into a single, diversified and resilient web of global wealth.”

From passion purchase to portfolio strategy

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Art that hung on walls and wine that sat in cellars is now competing for space in portfolios. After two years of correction, the market is finding its footing, but the numbers still demand careful reading. In spring 2022, as public equity markets stumbled and central banks signalled the end of cheap money, auction rooms told a different story. Sotheby’s reported record results. Rare whisky indices hit levels that would have seemed fanciful five years earlier. Tangible assets, long dismissed by mainstream wealth managers as indulgences of the very rich, were attracting serious institutional scrutiny for the first time.

Passion investing, encompassing fine watches, contemporary and classic art, vintage wine, rare whisky and high-end accessories, has spent a decade trying to shed its image as a plaything of the wealthy. In some corners of wealth management, it is succeeding. In others, scepticism remains deep and justified. The gap between those positions reveals something important about how investors think about value and risk.

For most of the 20th century the value of art, wine and watches was partly financial but mostly cultural, expressions of taste and inheritance rather than deliberate capital allocation. What changed was the infrastructure that grew up around them. Index providers began tracking price movements and platforms emerged to authenticate and trade collectibles. A prolonged period of low interest rates left investors hunting returns in unfamiliar places.

The long-run numbers remain striking. The Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index (KFLII) showed that $1m invested in 2005 would have grown to approximately $5.4m by end-2024. Individual categories performed even more dramatically at their peaks: rare whisky appreciated 191.7 percent over a decade and watches 125.1 percent.
Liam Bailey, Global Head of Research at Knight Frank, says: “Luxury collectibles have delivered for investors over the long term.” Wealth managers, particularly those serving ultra-high-net-worth clients, have begun to formalise what many already knew: that significant client wealth was sitting in collectibles, whether or not those assets appeared on any investment statement.

The performance reality check
The long-term figures are compelling. The recent ones are a useful corrective. The KFLII recorded a marginal –0.4 percent decline in 2025, signalling stabilisation after two years of broad correction across several collectible categories. That follows falls of one percent in 2023 and 3.3 percent in 2024. Even after three consecutive years of correction, the index remains 40 percent above its 2020 baseline, showing a market settling after a boom, not one in distress.
The auction houses tell a similar story of tentative recovery. Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips reported combined projected revenue of $14.1bn for 2025, up roughly 10 percent from 2024. Sotheby’s alone reported total sales of $7bn, a 17 percent increase over 2024, with fine art up 15 percent to $4.3bn. That compares with auction sales of $4.1bn across the big three in 2024, itself nearly half the 2022 peak. Impressionist sales surged 80.4 percent, modern art advanced 19.4 percent, and Old Masters registered a 68.7 percent uplift.

We see a lot of interest driven by the tangibility and the emotional factor

Christie’s CEO Bonnie Brennan said: “The energy has returned to the saleroom, online and across the market. We have seen renewed confidence worldwide.” The recovery, though, followed a pattern familiar to anyone who has watched asset markets closely: a pandemic-era surge driven by liquidity and newly wealthy buyers, followed by a reversion as rates rose. Assets that held up best were handbags, jewellery and coins and tended to be those with genuine scarcity and cultural resonance. Those that fell hardest had attracted the most speculative attention. The fine wine market posted a decline of 2.5 percent in 2025, with total losses approaching 25 percent since the 2022 peak. Whisky, the standout performer of the previous decade, has still not recovered its pre-correction highs.

The lesson is not that luxury assets are poor investments. It is that they are uneven and cyclical. Returns cluster around quality and timing in ways that reward expertise and punish trend-chasing. The investor who bought a Patek Philippe Nautilus watch at the height of the pandemic premium paid a very different price to one who bought the same watch in 2018. Same object, three years apart, entirely different financial story.

What is driving demand?
Despite the correction cycle, the structural forces behind long-term growth remain intact. Inflation has revived interest in tangible stores of value. Geopolitical uncertainty has reinforced the appeal of portable, internationally recognised assets. The value of 1959 Macallan whisky, for example, is legible to collectors from Shanghai to Geneva.

Liam Bailey, Global Head of Research at Knight Frank , speaking on the 2026 Wealth Report, said: “After a cycle defined by extraordinary highs followed by rapid readjustment, the luxury investment market is now entering a more rational and more discerning phase. Collectors are increasingly prioritising rarity and cultural resonance and younger generations are reshaping ownership models through digital and fractional platforms.” Demographics are shifting the buyer base in ways that will define the category’s next decade. At Sotheby’s, buyers under 40 made up 17 percent of global fine art bidders and just under 30 percent in luxury categories in 2025, while first-time bidders accounted for 35 percent of all participants. Where older collectors gravitated toward old masters and grand cru Bordeaux, younger buyers are drawn to contemporary art, street-wear, sneakers and independent watchmakers. For this cohort, the line between cultural consumption and financial investment has all but disappeared. “As people become wealthier, their preferences evolve beyond mass-produced luxury items to seek more unique and exclusive pieces. There is a desire for items that reflect authenticity, craftsmanship, heritage and skill,” Bailey adds. Serious participation in luxury collectible markets once required three things in short supply: significant capital, specialist knowledge and the right relationships.

Digital platforms and fractional ownership models have begun to change that, though not without complications. Phillips Auction House reported that 70 percent of works sold in the first half of 2024 were purchased via online bidding. For newer categories, rare sneakers, vintage haute couture, even natural history specimens, the internet has created new markets. A 66-million-year-old Edmontosaurus skull, sold via a fractional platform, delivered a 22.4 percent return in just eight and a half months, according to Knight Frank.

Leonardo De Keersmaeker, Asset and Partnerships Manager at Timeless Investments, explains the appeal: “We see a lot of interest driven by the tangibility and the emotional factor. It is about diversification of assets, with a fun story to tell.” The tension in all of this is real. The exclusivity underpinning the value of luxury collectibles is foundational to their appeal. Eran Peer, Co-Founder and CEO of fractional platform Konvi, cautions that: “the most valuable asset in the luxury investment space is knowledge” and that investors must “move beyond the hype and avoid simply following trends.” He believes success requires deep knowledge rather than simply following market hype.

Any serious discussion of luxury as an asset class must reckon with characteristics that sharply distinguish it from traditional investments. The most significant is liquidity, or the consistent lack of it. There is no exchange on which to sell vintage cognac at a moment’s notice. Auction timelines run to months. Private sales require the right buyer at the right moment, and the right buyer is never obligated to appear.

Valuation presents a related problem. Without a central pricing mechanism, the true market value of a collectible is largely unknowable until the moment of sale. Indices provide orientation, but they track categories, not individual items, and the spread between an exceptional piece and an average one can be enormous. Physical risks are unique to this category too: improper storage, contested provenance, or an accident that insurance may cover but the market will not forget. Authentication in the watch market, where sophisticated counterfeits are increasingly hard to detect, has become a cost of entry.

Success requires deep knowledge rather than simply following market hype

The broad consensus among wealth managers is that luxury belongs at the margins, a satellite position rather than a core holding, sized appropriately for its illiquidity and the expertise required. Some advisers suggest allocations of up to 20 percent in alternatives broadly defined, with collectibles representing a portion of that, not the whole.

The more important shift is in how the question is being framed. For most of the 20th century, passion purchases were kept separate from investment portfolios by convention. That convention is dissolving. As trend forecaster Martin Raymond observed in Knight Frank’s 2026 Wealth Report: “Collecting is not conspicuous consumption – it is conspicuous taste.” The generation that normalised cryptocurrency as a portfolio asset sees no reason to treat a limited-edition watch differently from any other store of value, and wealth managers who treat the categories as entirely separate risk losing the conversation.

Passion with discipline
Knight Frank frames the current moment as a market characterised by buyers who are highly disciplined, not afraid to spend, but unwilling to pay above fair value. The froth has cleared. The question now is what endures underneath it and which investors are patient and knowledgeable enough to find out.
The most successful long-term participants in luxury collectible markets have consistently been those who understood both dimensions: who bought what they genuinely valued, held through volatility without panic and sold with as much discipline as they brought to acquisition. In the end, the best investors in luxury may be those who understand both the market and its meaning and never mistake one for the other.

Background noise to boardroom threat

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Given the war in Ukraine and ongoing tensions in the Middle East, it is only natural to assume that businesses globally have prioritised geopolitical and energy risks. But there appears to be a longer-term risk category that corporates appear both unprepared for and that may present equal – if not greater – challenges than even environmental concerns: so-called ‘societal risks.’

In the latest Global Risks report released in January from the World Economic Forum (WEF), a leading think-tank, societal risks account for a third of the total list of current risks outlined as being the most serious by leading companies and key stakeholders (eight out of 33), four of the top 10 short-term risks, and two of the top-term long-term risks. They include inequality, the erosion of human rights and/or civic freedoms, involuntary migration/displacement, and ‘societal polarisation,’ where splits in society occur over widening gaps in income, opportunity, and political and cultural views. Together, these developments could have a serious impact on the global economy and world stability, say the report authors.

In fact, societal risk has become such a concern that it is ranked third in the WEF’s two-year outlook, only dropping to ninth place when respondents look 10 years ahead. Furthermore, it is the only risk that has remained in the top 10 list of risks for both the short-term and long-term outlook for the past five years, while inequality has been cited by leaders of the world’s largest companies as the most interconnected global risk for the past two years (higher even than environmental risks). With aspects such as mis/disinformation and geoeconomic confrontation also being heavily interconnected, societal and political polarisation could deepen further in the next two years, says the report.

Devastating impacts
If companies think these risks are unlikely to manifest themselves, they are badly mistaken: they already have – and with devastating impacts in some cases. Perhaps the most significant example is Brexit. The UK’s decision to leave the European Union (EU) in 2016 caught many off-guard despite years of polarised political debate about the merits of being a member of the bloc. Those voters who wished to remain part of the EU frequently cite an orchestrated, well-planned xenophobic disinformation campaign that successfully exploited social media as a key decider for the referendum result. And the impact is ongoing. The UK’s exit from the EU has seen a decline in the number of casual workers from lower-income EU countries in central and eastern Europe working in sectors such as farming and hospitality, which has been difficult for companies in these industries who are struggling to fill these positions with local labour. Brexit has also seen many workers with key skills across the public and private sectors leave the country due to changes in immigration and visa rules. Furthermore, highly charged public opinions around immigration and nationalism remain.

Societal risks should not be considered ‘peripheral’ any longer

Corporates have also suffered fallout from societal risks – most notably in sudden shifts in public sentiment that have led to disruptive consumer boycotts or workforce activism. For example, in 2023 brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev suffered a fierce boycott after its marketing campaign for Bud Light, featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, riled conservatives over the brand’s overt LGBTQ+ support in a Superbowl ad. Sales plummeted by 17 percent in just two weeks and the brand’s two-decade dominance as the US’ most commercial beer also went up in flames. The company’s response – which included distancing itself from Mulvaney – then led to a boycott from the LGBTQ+ community. Even now, Bud Light’s sales have not fully recovered.

Due to their prominence and their capability to inflict long-lasting damage, experts say societal risks should not be considered ‘peripheral’ any longer – they are strategic risks. But there are many reasons why companies fail to recognise their potential importance, scale and impact. One is because companies instinctively place them lower down the pecking order compared to more ‘direct’ risks like competition or cost pressure. Another reason is that societal risks are inherently difficult to identify and quantify: they encompass a wide range of risks, which means companies’ responses also vary widely.

According to Paulo Cardoso do Amaral, MBA Professor at Portugal’s Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics, societal risks often give off “weak signals,” such as subtle shifts in public sentiment, emerging social narratives, or early-stage policy debates, but then build up – and get out of hand – quickly. “What begins as a marginal conversation can escalate into a global movement within days,” he says. Traditionally, these signals used to evolve slowly enough to be captured through periodic analysis, but that assumption “no longer holds,” he says, “since the speed of communication amplified by digital platforms compresses the lifecycle of societal change.”

Non-traditional frameworks
Companies also undervalue societal risks because they do not fit neatly into typical risk categories. Traditional enterprise risk frameworks are designed around financial, operational and insurable risks – not inequality, migration or polarisation. And unlike market or credit risks, societal risks lack clear metrics, probabilities, and time horizons, which makes them difficult for organisations to quantify in the same way as more traditional and financial risks.

“Companies still tend to under-appreciate societal risks because they are easier to discuss in narrative terms than to govern operationally,” says Ryoji Morii, CEO of Insynergy, a Japan-based consulting firm. “These risks are often treated as ‘macro background conditions,’ even though they can directly affect workforce stability, customer trust, regulatory exposure, supply continuity, local legitimacy, and the resilience of operating assumptions.”

To address the problem, says Morii, companies need to ask themselves deeper questions to determine the wider consequences around how particular societal risks could alter their labour/recruitment market, license to operate, customer behaviour, legal exposure, political environment, or the reliability of their partners and operating regions.

Societal risk management also requires effective use of scenario planning to improve business continuity and make corporate strategy and operations more resilient. A simple scenario is in the area of talent management: when large groups of people feel excluded from the labour market, companies face a catastrophic talent shortage and rising operational costs due to social instability. Additionally, income disparity often prevents skilled individuals from accessing the training they need to fill modern roles. For companies, this means longer recruitment cycles and a skills gap that halts innovation.

Naima Robenhagen Burgdorf, global head of strategic workforce planning at Ramboll, an engineering, architecture and consultancy firm, has seen the problem present itself in the form of recruitment strategies, the use of contractors and off-shoring. “I have seen firsthand how companies become blindsided – not by the macro event itself, but by the workforce implications they never modelled,” she says. “A shift in geopolitical regional stability doesn’t show up as a workforce risk until you are suddenly re-evaluating where your offshore centres sit. A technology shift like AI doesn’t register as a societal risk until your early career pipeline model is structurally wrong,” she adds.

Supply chains are another key area where societal risks can linger. For instance, says Soledad Mills, senior vice president at sustainability consultancy TDi Sustainability, societal polarisation and income disparity concentrate vulnerable workforces in specific geographies, making certain countries disproportionately exposed to labour exploitation (including child/forced/slave labour), which can be a significant hidden risk factor in agricultural, garment, auto and electronics supply chains.

Meanwhile, involuntary migration creates a constantly shifting, undocumented labour pool that increases the likelihood of forced labour entering supply chains undetected. As a result, “companies relying on tier two, three or ‘nth’ suppliers in high-risk jurisdictions often have near-zero visibility into actual working conditions,” she says – a risky prospect given the current emphasis on third-party risk liability.

Enhanced due diligence
Another issue for companies is that key jurisdictions are beginning to require more due diligence and meaningful reporting around non-financial risks and the impacts companies’ operations can have on wider society.

Companies face direct liability for any harm caused by their actions

For example, the EU wants companies to consider societal risks and their impacts more directly. The EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which came into force in 2023 and took effect in 2025, applies to all large EU companies, but has extra-territorial impact due to the fact it also applies to non-EU companies that conduct significant business within the EU. Consequently, estimates suggest the directive covers around 50,000 companies worldwide.

A key requirement of the directive is that it mandates ‘double materiality,’ which means companies need to examine and report on the impact of the company’s operations on the environment and society, as well as report on the impact of sustainability factors on the company. Arif Gasilov, partner, climate and environmental reporting at sustainability consultancy Gasilov Group, believes “the double materiality assessment is probably the closest thing to a systematic tool for surfacing societal risks at the corporate level.”

He adds that the requirement to evaluate both how societal conditions affect the business and how the business affects societal conditions “creates a two-way map of exposure that traditional frameworks miss,” adding that “companies that actually go through this usually find societal risks that were previously invisible or buried under ‘reputational risk’ as a catchall.”

Mills adds that there is increased investor risk if companies neglect human rights due diligence and warns that “regulatory exposure is hardening, particularly in Europe” because companies face direct liability for any harm caused by their actions. Furthermore, she says, “companies with unmanaged human rights exposure face sudden devaluation when abuses surface,” while lenders and institutional investors are increasingly required under their own frameworks (such as the UN Principles for Responsible Investment and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct) to assess human rights due diligence quality in portfolio companies. “Inadequate due diligence isn’t just a compliance risk,” says Mills, “it is a signal of weak governance and poor operational visibility overall.”

Why Ireland rules Europe’s ETF market

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Ireland is the firmly established engine room of Europe’s exchange-traded funds market, reveals new research from EY Ireland. The company’s EMEIA ETF Leader, Lisa Kealy, says the country has 70 percent of all European Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), and that it is seeing much growth in active ETFs, of which it has a 94 percent share. That’s quite a success story considering that the value of European domiciled ETFs surged to €2.7trn, growing by 41 percent in 2025 alone.

“It didn’t happen by accident: It was due to hard work to present ourselves as a centre of excellence,” Kealy remarks. Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street – the top three institutional investors – chose to set up in Ireland because the infrastructure is highly developed to support their products. The country has also developed a role for itself that goes far beyond being a popular fund domicile.

“Because they set up here, everyone else followed, and now Ireland is seen as the centre of excellence for ETFs,” she explains. The Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) framework, and Ireland’s understanding of the nuances of ETFs, redemptions, and how ETFs trade on the secondary market, have all been factors that have helped. Trust with passive ETFs has facilitated interest in active ETFs too.

Positive growth driver
On a global scale, ETFs have also been a positive growth driver – pushed along by increasing transparency, liquidity, cost-efficiency and accessibility. Kealy says UCITS has been an important building block to Ireland’s success. It is an EU regulatory standard that harmonises the regulation of investments funds, allowing them to be managed and sold across Europe with a single passport. It focuses on investor protection by enforcing strict diversification, liquidity, and transparency rules for retail investment products.

Irish service providers have built seamless connectivity to the ETF ecosystem

Comparing the experience of Luxembourg with Ireland, she explains: “The UCITS brand and regulatory framework really opened the door for us when it came to ETFs. It wasn’t going to guarantee leadership, but it did open the door. While Luxembourg had a great opportunity, scale didn’t come automatically. What differentiated us in Ireland and gave us leadership was the ability to really scale – establishing ourselves as a centre of expertise, by really understanding daily transparency, in-kind creations and redemptions, the listing structure, the settlement structure, and how ETFs are actually traded on the second trip.

“It is about how you can create and redeem blocks of capital with authorised participants (APs), or market makers (MMs), that whole creation subscription structure. We needed to really understand it all and to make sure that they traded really well on the secondary market. We understood that ETF mechanics and the regulation. And it was that investment of, you know, knowledge, technology, people and process that created our centre of excellence in Ireland.”

Disproportionate share of ETFs
Deborah Fuhr, CFA Fellow, Managing Partner and Founder of ETFGI, says her firm’s data shows that Ireland captured a disproportionate share of ETF launches and assets. She thinks Ireland also benefits from its operational efficiencies when it comes to fund administration, depository, legal, tax, and capital markets expertise – and compared to European centres it has a predictability of regulation, and it benefits from being an English-speaking country. More to the point, she says once Ireland became the default ETF domicile, its ability to scale reinforced itself.

“UCITS was the enabler; Ireland’s execution made it decisive,” she claims. As for Ireland’s key differentiators, she cites ETF-specific regulatory interpretation, faster authorisation timelines, and she finds that the country is comfortable with complex synthetic, fixed income and active structures. Subsequently a majority of European active ETF assets are domiciled in Ireland, and she says that is despite active ETFs still being a minority of total ETF assets.

However, Ireland’s regulators were early and pragmatic on non-transparent and semi-transparent models, and while there has to be a certain degree of portfolio disclosure flexibility, “Ireland already hosted the largest concentration of fixed income ETFs, which translated naturally into active adoption,” she notes.

With US active ETF sponsors expanding into Europe, and defaulting to Ireland, she believes this signals that Europe’s next phase of ETF growth is active, fixed income, and outcome orientated. As for Ireland’s portfolio disclosure flexibility, which is particularly relevant to daily disclosures, Kealy interjects: “The Central Bank of Ireland has recalibrated the daily transparency requirements for active ETFs to balance investor protection, market efficiency and intellectual property. Transparency works well for passive ETFs because the managers are holding a very broad index. That can create issues for active strategies because it risks institutional investors front running that fund, if it makes sense, because the whole portfolio is disclosed.” Its regulatory approach is helped by engaging closely with industry.

Complexity: Leaping the moat
Ciarán Fitzpatrick, Global Head of ETF Product at JPMorgan, adds that fund administration, capital markets expertise and specialist talent are critical to sustaining Ireland’s leadership. In fact, he describes them as the moat. “Ireland’s model is not simply a legal domicile; it is a scaled operating platform and infrastructure,” he explains before commenting that Irish Funds have stressed the “breadth and depth of service capability and the highly automated and scalable global solutions” available to issuers there.

The country’s ecosystem has also evolved beyond asset servicing into broader front-office expertise spanning capital markets including APs located in Ireland, product development, innovation and global distribution. “This matters more – not less – as the industry shifts toward active ETFs, outcome-oriented strategies, derivatives overlays and new operating models such as tokenisation,” Fitzpatrick suggests.

Fuhr adds: “Evidence shows that ETF success correlates strongly with primary/secondary market efficiency, and Ireland specialist ETF administrators, AP-facing capital markets desks, lawyers, tax experts and index specialists.” The moat is being created by ETFs becoming more complex, by adding operational depth and not just regulation.

APs: Full liquidity support
Fitzpatrick says the role of APs and MMs is vital, helping to provide full liquidity support to the ETF ecosystem, while also “underpinning the creation and redemption mechanism that connects the secondary market (where investors trade) to the primary market (where ETF shares are created or redeemed).”
Market Makers also support two-way pricing, absorb and manage intraday flows. “As ETF usage becomes more retail and more mainstream, this connectivity becomes more visible – and more sensitive,” Fitzpatrick explains before highlighting that “Irish service providers have built seamless connectivity to the ETF ecosystem, including APs and MMs.”

He adds: “When the operating model evolves, regulators naturally focus on who provides liquidity, how it is monitored and managed, and how contingency plans are governed. This is a regulatory priority to ensure that investors are being serviced transparently and that markets supporting them are functioning efficiently.”

His colleague, Fearghal Woods, Ireland Securities Services Head at JPMorgan, describes the way active ETFs are challenging traditional transparency and disclosure requirements: “Active ETFs put pressure on the classic ETF norm of frequent portfolio disclosure. Managers want the benefits of the ETF wrapper, and they also want to protect intellectual property and reduce the risk of front-running. Ireland’s central bank has been very responsive in this regard and has introduced a flexible portfolio transparency regime for both active and passive ETFs, allowing portfolio holdings to be disclosed up to quarterly, with a lag of up to 30 business days to avoid any concerns of front-running.”

The response of the Central Bank of Ireland has been to permit ETF share classes within mutual funds, he reveals, letting firms deliver ETF features through existing structures without a separate legal vehicle. “However, this may and can present some operational challenges for the fund that any issuer needs to consider carefully,” Woods reports before commenting: “For issuers it does demonstrate a desire to support active product innovation while keeping the regulatory regime coherent and scalable.”

Heightened scrutiny
Not everything is rosy. Ireland’s dominance also brings heightened scrutiny. While ETFs now represent a significant share of Ireland’s funds industry, with industry reports suggesting that they account for roughly 32 percent of total Irish‑authorised fund assets, there are structural shifts that are re-shaping demand. Therefore, younger investors, digital platforms, neobanks and robo-advisers are accelerating ETF adoption across Europe – leading to significant growth in active ETFs.

Ireland’s ability to support innovation – while maintaining regulatory credibility – will be critical to sustaining its leadership position over the next few years, particularly as assets are forecast to exceed €5trn in Europe by 2030. To achieve this, Ireland is going to need to continue to innovate. So with the young banking through the likes of Revolut, and offered ETF products through it, access to ETFs should increase.

While apps need to play a role in attracting the young, there is also a need for financial literacy to complement the Savings Investment Union, and to promote ETFs as low-cost, liquid products that are highly accessible to investors. Kealy thinks this could create a good saving habit for young people who tend to engage through apps and use automated forms rather than go to an investment adviser.

“ETFs enable access through the apps and the digital platforms that investors are looking to access, so I think it is really important in terms of our culture at a European level,” she comments. The trouble is that Europeans are good savers, but not necessarily good investors. The challenge is therefore to change the culture from a savers’ one to an investors’ culture for young people in Europe. To Kealy, ETFs are the ideal vehicle for achieving this transformation.

Risks remain
Recent reviews by the Central Bank of Ireland highlight that while the Irish ETF ecosystem has functioned effectively during both normal and stressed market conditions, risks remain. In particular, the concentration of activity among a relatively small number of APs and MMs raises questions about liquidity resilience, governance, and contingency planning. The regulator has also emphasised the need for stronger oversight, board‑level reporting, and more robust monitoring frameworks to ensure that ETF liquidity mechanisms remain robust as the market scales.

Europeans are good savers, but not necessarily good investors

Ireland can nevertheless maintain its dominance if it can avoid being complacent – taking what has been achieved for granted. The world is competitive, and so Ireland can’t afford to sit on its laurels. As Kealy says, Luxembourg is fighting hard to create a really strong ETF ecosystem.

She concludes: “So we need to work harder to continue to earn our position each and every year. This means we need to continue to develop Ireland’s ETF market infrastructure, and to collaborate with the leaders and the managers in the US and the UK to ensure that we have the best ecosystem and that we are really innovative and quick in responding to their needs.”

Work to be done
In Kealy’s view there is still work to be done. For example, there is a need to fix the disconnection around domestic participation, and the domestic block – the tax issue to create an investment culture in Ireland by implementing a favourable tax regime for investors. “You do this by ensuring there is no tax block on Irish people investing in our ETF industry,” she explains.

An opportunity to continue to lead the transformation of the market, encouraging more investors than savers, begins on July 1, 2026, when Ireland takes on the EU presidency. It will allow Ireland to create more harmonisation and standardisation, as well as more digital infrastructure around ETFs – enabling Ireland to promote a smart approach to leading in this area.

Woods also says maintaining Ireland’s leadership is about scaling the operating model by continuing to invest in automation and talent, enhancing the regulatory framework, and enabling innovation without undermining confidence. A key part of this will be to expand ETF and new product capabilities while enhancing investor protection with ongoing regulatory pragmatism. Fuhr summarises it by saying that “Ireland’s lead is structural, not accidental – but leadership must be continuously earned.”

Debt diplomacy 2.0: Who owns emerging markets?

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For decades, the success story behind emerging markets was simple: borrow, build, grow. Debt was a stepping stone, never entirely stable, but still a way to develop and grow. Today, that story holds no value. In the current landscape, debt is not just a tool for development; it silently redefines the boundaries of control.

Call it ‘debt diplomacy 2.0.’ The pathways to achieve growth have evolved, the instruments are more advanced, and the effects are perhaps more profound, but not that obvious. Emerging economies once operated within a relatively predictable system. The key players were known and outcomes were often foreseeable. When international lenders stepped in, Western financial institutions restructured debt, while governments accepted austerity in exchange for stability. It was disorganised, but still somewhat planned.

Today, the market is fragmented, and debt is spread across a network of state-owned lenders, bond markets, private funds and bilateral deals. Not a single state has complete control. And that is precisely the real challenge. The ‘bright shining’ strategy of modern development is infrastructure financing. Across Asia, Africa and Latin America, governments have borrowed heavily to finance power plants, highways and ports. On paper, these development schemes show growth and progress. However, in practice, they often get lost in heavy paperwork or in the dynamics of geopolitics. This shift reflects a broader change in how influence is exercised. Where debts once revolved around interests and returns, it is now linked to foreign policies and strategic relationships. When repayment becomes difficult, which often happens, negotiations extend beyond balance sheets.

Taking advantage
Historically, control was gained through wars and battlefields. Today, there are far more calculated approaches. Rather than directly taking over small economies, it is more beneficial to take advantage of their financial situation: holding power to influence decisions, limiting opportunities, or dictating terms that are suitable only to them. And hence, options are further reduced. Over the last decade, developing economies have welcomed international bond markets. Borrowing in dollars required less effort due to global liquidity, higher interest rates and weak currencies. However, that environment has now shifted. Financial resources are becoming more limited, and as a result, debt servicing costs are crossing new highs every year. The outcome of this situation is a gradual squeeze.

Governments are trying their best to avoid default by adjusting their annual budgets and making space for repayments. Public investment slows and social spending becomes increasingly limited. Individually, none of this reaches the news, but collectively, it is reshaping priorities in a significant way.

So, who really owns emerging markets? The answer is not straightforward. China has shown immense growth and Western economies have a long history of influence. Yet the reality is more complex. Everyone seems to have a stake, and at the same time, no one has sole control. Power is fragmented. A country seeking debt relief may struggle to meet the demands of bondholders in New York, the deadlines of multilateral organisations in Washington, and the expectations of bilateral lenders in Beijing. Coordination fails due to long delays, and because of that, economic momentum stalls.

Limited capabilities
The core issue lies in the absence of a system capable of handling this complexity of modern debt. Current debt processes were not built for this level of fragmentation. While G20’s Common Framework is a positive initiative, they remain insufficient in addressing the structural gaps. The burden, meanwhile, falls on borrowers whose capabilities are already limited. Some economies are becoming more cautious, avoiding large-scale debts, forming strategic partnerships carefully, and scrutinising hidden costs. Others continue to invest, hoping that growth will surpass liabilities. In a world where capital is expensive and external shocks are frequent, that is a dangerous bet.

The key issue isn’t just financial; it is strategic. Emerging markets are being pushed to operate in a system where capital often comes with hidden conditions. The real challenge is not to avoid debt altogether, but to negotiate terms that ensure long-term autonomy. In ‘debt diplomacy 2.0,’ control is rarely explicit.

Markets are controlled through agreements, refinancing conditions, and limited options. To move forward, emerging markets will need to diversify their creditors, organise obligations more effectively, and draw a clearer line between economic necessity and political independence. That may well define the next decade: not whether countries can grow, but whether they can do so on their own terms.

The rise of the data state

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For the last several years, data was considered mainly an administrative tool. Governments treated digitalisation only as a way to improve efficiency by decreasing bureaucracy, boosting access and streamlining services. This approach is now shifting, with nations increasingly treating digital infrastructure as economic and strategic assets. From Singapore’s integrated digital identity platforms to Estonia’s decentralised databases, governments are designing new models of national data ecosystems. Instead of only regulating the data, they are extracting key insights from it, while controlling and designing the digital infrastructure. These insights are helping support secure data exchange, financial verification, urban planning and AI-driven systems, generating measurable economic value. However, this raises key questions around data ownership, value and monetisation. As governments take greater control of national infrastructure and citizen data, who really benefits? And could data-driven platforms become a new class of economic asset?

From digital systems to economic assets
Rising digital sovereignty is swiftly reshaping how countries view, build and use economic infrastructure. Today, national platforms are integrated systems underpinning vital financial services, while enabling greater economic access and data exchange through public-private data ecosystems. Estonia’s decentralised, open-source data exchange layer, X-Road, is the foundation of its e-state, allowing online tax filing, residence registration and health records. By connecting 99 percent of government databases, independent systems can exchange information directly, while maintaining their own data.

This supports Estonia’s ‘once-only’ principle, where data is only entered once, decreasing duplication and streamlining commercial and administrative processes. Data can be exchanged across different countries through the X-Road Trust Federation, highlighting the platform’s potential to scale internationally.

Similarly, Singapore’s MyInfo allows citizens to securely share and manage verified personal data with both private sector and government digital services. It is used by over 1,000 private and government digital services and has greatly streamlined banking and loan applications. The UAE’s Digital UAE platform and initiatives like United Digital Platform and UAE Pass offer a centralised access point and digital identity for more than 12,000 private and government services. It enables digital signatures, biometric-based identity systems and paperless transactions, like business licensing and visa applications for seamless cross-sector interaction. These platforms are evolving beyond individual administrative tools to form the foundational systems through which economic activity is carried out by embedding digital identity into core national operations.

Where the value comes from
State platforms have significantly advanced digitalisation; however, the biggest value comes from decreased economic friction. By enabling faster verification and more efficient data reuse, they are transforming large-scale transactions. “The real asset is not the citizen data itself, but the velocity of transactions that are derived from the usage of that data,” Kuldeep Kundal, founder and CEO of Cyber Infrastructure (CIS), highlighted. “When governments create a digital foundation for their infrastructure, it essentially reduces the cost of doing business – and therefore creates a huge macro-economic multiplier effect.”

Estonia’s X-Road offers value by reusing verified data across ecosystems. This allows administrative burden and costs to be considerably reduced, while accelerating service delivery through direct data exchanges between organisations like police, healthcare and tax authorities. X-Road saved both the government and citizens over 1,345 years of working time annually or two percent of its GDP in time and resources in 2018. Singapore’s MyInfo has decreased credit processing and identity verification times, which greatly slashes compliance expenses for companies. It also accelerates financial services onboarding and increases client acquisition and access to finance. Digital UAE helps businesses and entrepreneurs to operate more smoothly in the country by simplifying services like property transactions and licensing.

Another important way these platforms generate value is by ensuring that all traffic is signed, time-stamped and encrypted, to protect confidentiality and integrity. This significantly reduces the chances of fraud while avoiding expensive audit procedures. Organisations can also scale more sustainably through these systems, by adding services gradually, lowering the risks of costly implementation failures. Similarly, they support AI-enabled tools, analytics and predictive systems for sectors like urban planning.

As such, rather than directly monetising data, these platforms enable economy-wide efficiency improvements, which translates into millions of transactions carried out faster, cheaper and more transparently. These efficiency gains then act as economic leverage, which can directly boost national productivity.

Who gains the most value
Although these digital platforms have significant advantages, their value is unevenly distributed across stakeholders. “Governments gain efficiency and visibility. The private sector gains lower onboarding costs and better rails for service delivery. Citizens gain convenience, speed, and in some cases stronger inclusion,” Michelle Li, chief operating officer at Bisblox, said. “Historically, governments captured the first wave of value through modernisation. Now the centre of gravity is shifting toward ecosystems, where the biggest upside comes from what others can build on top.”

As the primary designers and controllers of these infrastructures, governments remain at the core. By using national platforms as the foundation for financial verification, service delivery and digital transactions, governments retain considerable power over how data is accessed, reused and shared throughout the economy. This boosts significant indirect value through GDP savings, higher public service efficiency and a stronger tax base.

Private sector players capture much of the direct commercial value, as they can build services on these platforms using verified, reliable data, which decreases compliance costs. “By providing the pipelines for many new products (fintech, logistics, insurance, etc) that previously were blocked by red tape, these platforms will now provide the private sector with a means of accessing markets in ways that no longer inhibit them from being able to operate within those markets,” Kundal noted. However, this also means greater reliance on government-controlled platforms, as companies do not own or control the infrastructure they use. Citizens provide the vast majority of the data for these platforms and enjoy enhanced convenience and access through less paperwork, faster services and greater financial inclusion. Despite this, they are almost never monetarily compensated, with control and consent over this personal data remaining murky areas. This creates a complex value distribution model, as most efficiency gains are tempered by a loss of autonomy and control. As these platforms deliver more economic value, they are reshaping how power is distributed within digital economies.

As national digital systems scale, economic and efficiency improvements also have some key trade-offs. One of these is privacy versus economic value creation. While enabling seamless data exchange, faster verification and lower costs, sensitive data is highly concentrated within a few government-controlled systems too.

This raises the potential for state scrutiny and surveillance, leading to an important question: When does monetisation and efficiency creation become overreach? “Regulators are pushing for citizens to have rights over their data as it flows downstream. That pressure is important because the legal structure supporting the majority of these platforms is much weaker than most governments would like to admit,” Marcus Denning, senior lawyer at MK Law, explained. “The largest risk is that most governments are attempting to define rights to the data without actually having the authority to convey those rights. Most citizens have no idea this is happening.”

This data concentration within a few platforms can worsen systemic risk and magnify losses in cases of cyber attacks, technical failures or governance issues. Similarly, while allowing thousands of private sector companies to access personal citizen data can speed up service delivery, client retention and onboarding, the risk of commercial misuse can increase too. This includes data selling, credit profiling and targeted advertising.

“Governance is still treated as a layer on top, while the data itself is moving in real time underneath. This leads to consent, access control, and auditability failing to keep up with how fast the ecosystem expands,” Pratik Mistry, EVP of Technology Consulting at Radixweb, said.

“The real risk here is not just privacy in isolation, but that once these systems scale, it becomes very difficult to trace who is using what data and for what purpose.” Another growing tension is between control and innovation. National systems can enhance efficiency and greatly decrease friction for businesses, but also limit economic activity into narrower, predetermined functions. As a result, business experimentation could be slower and restricted to the edges of the ecosystem. As state powers grow through digitalisation, individual rights also come more into focus. In many cases, it may not always be possible to inform citizens when their data moves between organisations, resulting in eroded trust in the government. This raises another fundamental question: could open and distributed systems be a fairer and more transparent way than centralised platforms to maintain efficiency and trust?

A new asset class?
The rapid growth of national digital platforms has led to them being seen more as financial than administrative assets, mainly due to their ability to underpin core economic services at scale (see Fig 1). This is similar to other regulated infrastructure assets such as payment systems and telecom networks, where the main value comes from the reliability and mass volume of the transactions they support.

Down the line, this could potentially pave the way for them generating stable and long-term economic returns, much like other traditional infrastructure assets. If so, they could attract investments from institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds and private capital alike, as digital state capacities grow. However, platform pricing is likely to remain complicated, as their performance is closely linked to trust, governance and political continuity. As a result, a new type of hybrid asset class could emerge, which would be a combination of economic asset and public utility, redefining economic value and control in modern economies.

Financing Europe’s race for energy sovereignty

Posted on by itsupport

The signing of the Hamburg Declaration in January 2026 was intended to be a steady, decades-long roadmap toward transforming the North Sea into a 100 GW offshore wind hub. However, history rarely follows a linear path. The sudden and violent closure of the Strait of Hormuz shortly after the declaration has acted as a brutal catalyst, shifting the project from a long-term climate goal to an immediate matter of national survival.

As governments fast-track auctions and private capital scrambles to keep pace, the financial world is facing a stark reality: the current regulatory and financial architecture is being stress-tested by a ‘war-time’ deployment pace it was never designed to handle. For years, the North Sea wind expansion was discussed in the sterile lexicon of ‘Net Zero 2050.’ The Hormuz crisis changed the conversation overnight. Energy security has now surpassed decarbonisation as the primary driver of infrastructure investment. Arif Gasilov, partner at ESG and sustainability consulting firm Gasilov Group, captures the urgency: “The financing architecture we are examining is not a 2050 planning exercise. Governments are fast-tracking auctions now, and private capital needs to follow at a pace the current regulatory patchwork simply isn’t designed for.”

François Le Scornet, President and Senior Consultant at Carbonexit Consulting, argues that the crisis confirms offshore wind is no longer just a “light-hearted climate story” but a core industrial security plan. “Imported fossil fuels are a strategic weakness from a European perspective,” Le Scornet explains. “North Sea electricity is definitely a strategic asset from a geopolitical standpoint.”

The acceleration is visible in the numbers. Germany announced an additional 12 GW of auction volumes in direct response to the supply shock, while the UK brought forward its AR8 offshore auction to July 2026. This ‘Hormuz premium’ is forcing fund managers to re-evaluate risk-return profiles for assets deployed in months rather than years.

The revenue stability gap
While the 100 GW target is ambitious, the financial mechanisms to reach it remain under debate. Le Scornet warns that the target is credible only if governments stop pretending that private capital will shoulder the burden alone. To reach the goal, Europe needs approximately 15 GW per year from 2031 to 2040. “To ensure stable income for developers, at least 10 GW per year will require two-way price guarantee contracts (known as Contracts for Difference or CfDs),” Le Scornet asserts. These contracts fix a set price, protecting developers from market dips and consumers from overpaying during price spikes. “This ensures revenue stability for the developer and protects consumers when market prices are high. PPAs (Power Purchase Agreements) alone will not carry such an increase.”

North Sea electricity is definitely a strategic asset from a geopolitical standpoint

This creates a particular challenge for ‘hybrid’ assets like LionLink, connecting the UK and the Netherlands. Because the UK sits outside the EU’s internal energy market, investors face a dual layer of complexity: navigating different subsidy regimes and market coupling rules while managing significant currency risk.

“Developers are forced to structure PPAs across a GBP/EUR split,” Gasilov explains. “In agreements lasting 15 to 25 years, hedging costs eat into the already thin profit margins of offshore wind.” The lack of standardised contract templates for hybrid-specific risks remains a barrier, leaving institutional investors to manage 25-year currency volatility on a project-by-project basis.

According to Le Scornet, the real bottleneck is not just the capital, but the allocation of risk – specifically concerning grid investment, congestion, curtailment and price gap compensation. Furthermore, policy divergence between the UK and EU remains a primary concern for investors.

In this context, public de-risking becomes the ‘make-or-break’ factor. The roles of the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the UK National Wealth Fund are critical. “Without such public de-risking, the 100 GW target may seem very bullish,” Le Scornet warns. The public sector must act as the primary guarantor to make early-stage, high-risk projects bankable for the private market.

The ‘greenium’ mystery
The final pillar of the North Sea Hub is the capital itself, largely raised through green bonds. However, the pricing of these instruments reveals a complex landscape. Hilda Afeku-Amenyo, a researcher at Montclair State University, points to the concept of the ‘greenium’ – the slightly lower interest rate (or yield discount) investors accept in exchange for a green label. Academic literature, including recent findings by Panizza et al, suggests that the greenium for supranational bonds in advanced economies is approximately two basis points. Interestingly, research by Fatica et al found that the supranational greenium was once several times higher than the corporate one.

“This asymmetry in bond pricing provides one possible reason why institutions like the EIB have chosen to offer loans to North Sea countries rather than establishing dedicated, joint green bond programmes for the region,” Afeku-Amenyo explains. Demand, rather than climate impact alone, continues to drive the corporate green premium, which currently sits between three and eight basis points. A significant hurdle for the formal implementation of the Hamburg Declaration is Taxonomy alignment. According to a 2025 Bruegel policy brief, only nine percent of EU green bonds currently meet the strict criteria of the EU Taxonomy.

More concerning is the sectoral concentration: 79 percent of corporate green bonds that meet these criteria come from utility companies, despite utilities representing only five percent of the EU’s economic output. While this concentration helps offshore wind developers and Transmission System Operators (TSOs) in the short term, the ability of the Taxonomy to accommodate the sheer scale of Hamburg Declaration projects remains an open question.

Evidence from the first year
The first year of the EU Green Bond Standard (EuGBS) has seen approximately €22bn in issuance. However, data from ABN AMRO and IEEFA reveal a surprising trend: there is no measurable pricing advantage for bonds labelled under the EuGBS as opposed to those aligned with the older ICMA standards. Despite this, major players are moving forward. TenneT Germany launched its inaugural Green Finance Framework under the EuGBS in late 2025, and Eurogrid issued a €1.1bn EuGBS-aligned bond in October 2025. Denmark also issued its first sovereign EuGBS late last year.

“These developments indicate a shift towards the adoption of a common green bond standard across the region, rather than towards the development of a common issuing authority,” notes Afeku-Amenyo. The standard is moving faster than the pooling of bonds, leaving the prospect of a unified ‘North Sea Green Bond’ as one of the most intriguing unresolved questions in European finance.

Even with the capital secured, the legal vacuum in the high seas remains a ‘structural heart attack.’ Without a supranational regulatory authority, a project spanning multiple waters requires separate permitting processes and conflicting Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs). “If a country changes its consenting rules mid-construction, counterparties are left with state-to-state legal disputes (arbitration) at best,” says Gasilov. This policy uncertainty is a significant deterrent for the ‘patient capital’ provided by pension funds. Moreover, biodiversity has moved from an ESG metric to a material financial risk. As wind density increases, the impact on migratory corridors creates permitting delays. However, the industry is fighting back with data. During the recent WindEurope Annual Event 2026 in Madrid, Sofia Ferreira (DHI A/S) presented a framework to quantify environmental vulnerability across 86,000 km², identifying conflict zones before upfront investment costs (CAPEX) are committed.

Policy divergence between the UK and EU remains a primary concern for investors

Operators like TenneT are also proving that infrastructure can act as a catalyst for nature. Saskia Jaarsma reported that High Voltage Offshore Substations (OHVS) are acting as biodiversity hotspots, hosting species like the harbour seal. For the finance community, this eco-friendly infrastructure (Nature-Inclusive Design) is about permitting speed – the faster a project proves ‘Nature Positive’ credentials, the faster it clears the regulatory hurdles of a post-Hormuz world.

The path to an energy union
The 100 GW North Sea Hub is a masterpiece of engineering, but its financial and legal foundations are still under construction. The Hormuz crisis has provided the political will to accelerate, but as Gasilov and the experts in Madrid have highlighted, ‘will’ is not enough to de-risk a trillion-euro investment.

To succeed, the North Sea requires three structural shifts: a unified authority to handle consenting and dispute resolution across all EEZs; a template for cross-border contracts that mitigates the GBP/EUR split and price gap risk (the risk that prices between the UK and EU will not align as expected); and a basin-wide methodology for pricing biodiversity, turning environmental protection into a predictable financial metric. The North Sea has the wind, the technology, and now the geopolitical urgency. If the finance ministers in London and Brussels can match the ambition of the engineers, the North Sea Hub will not only be Europe’s ‘Green Powerhouse’ but also the blueprint for a new era of supranational financial cooperation.