By Gunter Deuber, Casper Engelen and Andreas Schwabe, RBI | Spread of the pandemic Overall, nearly all countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) seem to be still in the very early stages of local Coronavirus outbreaks, but events are emerging rapidly. Thankfully, the amount of reported infections is still on a relatively low level […]
By Gunter Deuber, RBI The Green Deal for Europe (EGD) is seen by some observers as a trend-setting and future-oriented EU project at the level of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) or even the foundation of the euro. However, it should be noted that such ambitious policy projects do not necessarily have a unifying character. […]
By Sebastian Petric and Andreas Schwabe, RBI | In light of the historic anniversary some months ago – 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall -, we have another look at the events surrounding the economic transformation of Eastern Europe, in particular on the transformational recessions in the initial years, as well as […]
By Dieter Aigner, Raiffeisen Capital Management | In recent years, green bonds have become a permanent feature of the investment universe of sustainable investors. Why? Because these bonds are specifically dedicated to financing green projects. This means that the money raised from issues of these securities is used to finance ecological projects with climate relevance. […]
CEE and Austria with a lot of catching up to do By Jörg Bayer, RBI | Read the first part of this article here. What applies to the European financial market as a whole, applies even to a larger extent to the CEE and CIS region including Austria. Currently the total of “green” bonds from […]
By Jörg Bayer, RBI | For years, Green Financial Products sounded like a marketing strategy to many investors and were not taken as a serious and important market segment. This is changing rapidly now, especially in Europe. In the USA this topic is currently determined far more by the markets themselves whereas in Europe, additional […]
By Valbona Gjeka, Raiffeisen Bank Albania, Gunter Deuber, RBI | In a somewhat surprising move, the Council of Europe did not agree to give the green light for the official opening of accession talks to Albania in 2019. That was unexpected, because the European Commission and most of the EU countries recognized the progress of […]
In December, the Discover CEE spotlight is on Albania! Watch out for several blog posts on Albania’s business, culture and success stories. Today, we have the most interesting economic data and cultural facts about Albania at a glance for you. The fact sheet is also downloadable in print version. Click here to print the fact […]
By Sebastian Petric and Daniel Pail, RBI | The technicalities of transitioning from plan to market are still a hotly debated topic. In light of the current anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, we recap the ideas on economic transformation and summarize the realities the Eastern European countries faced in the 1990s. Transition […]
In November, the Discover CEE spotlight is on Bulgaria! Watch out for several blog posts on Bulgaria’s business, culture and success stories. Today, we have the most interesting economic data and cultural facts about Bulgaria at a glance for you. The fact sheet is also downloadable in print version. Click here to print the fact […]
By Angelina Krutova, Raiffeisenbank in Russia | The Russian fintech market has been growing significantly for the past two years in terms of both the number of deals and the volume of investment. The market has several particularities: Russia is a leading global supplier of IT specialists and some areas such as P2P lending, crowd […]
By Stanislav Murashov, Raiffeisenbank in Russia, and Andreas Schwabe, RBI | An oil price shock and the introduction of economic and financial sanctions led to a strong devaluation of the rouble and a recession in 2014-15. Since then, however, Russia has clearly regained financial strength. This is expressed in a surplus on both the current […]