Latest news with #USBank
Forbes
11 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
Trade Finance Is (Finally) Going On-Chain
Trade finance is just the latest sign of institutional adoption In the aftermath of crypto week there is certainly going to be plenty of discussion around the future of cryptoassets in the United States from a policy perspective, but even while that continues to dominate headlines, blockchain adoption continues to accelerate virtually unabated, albeit in an under-the-radar manner. In the immediate run-up to crypto week it was announced that U.S. Bank had completed its first fully digital trade finance transaction, highlighting the shift away from paper-based processes in international trade. As the first American lender to execute such a transaction using WaveBL – a blockchain that enables encrypted document transfers between trading partners and financial institutions – will have ramifications far beyond the specifics of this individual transaction. The Digital Container Shipping Association, representing nine (9) of the world's ten (10) largest container lines, has set a target of issuing 100% of bills of lading in an electronic format by 2030. According to research by the Asian Development Bank estimates that there is potentially $1.5 trillion of trade finance opportunities that have remained untapped, excluding small to medium size businesses. With the speed and transparency provided by blockchain based trade financing agreements, much of this gap can be closed; the DCSA goal toward 100% electronic bills of lading will only accelerate the pace at which this goal is achieved. Outside of the direct benefits to the shipping industry and affiliated entities, lets' take a look at a the benefits this change will create. Regardless of the political turmoil and debate around the cryptoasset sector the fact remains that institutional adoption has continued virtually unabated. Even as the retail market and utilization of crypto, in the form of stablecoins of other iterations, remains stagnant, the influx of institutional investors and attention the space is worthy of attention. Be it the increasing expansion of crypto services by payment processors such as PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard, or the deployment of crypto-native solutions by banking titans such as J.P. Morgan Chase the landscape has shifted in a definitive manner. Crypto transactions, the processing of said transactions, and the benefits of these transactions are increasingly clear to institutions that handle and process trillions of dollars of transactions on an annual basis. Coupled with the regulatory progress being made related to stablecoins, which in and of themselves combine the benefits of on-chain transactions with the stability of the U.S. dollar, and the implications for the dollar-based reserve banking system are clear. Dollars will be going on-chain and will build on existing efforts to tokenize U.S. Treasuries – the largest and most liquid market in the world – to an even greater extent moving forward. Policy debates will occur, but crypto advocates and investors alike should keep an eye on the bigger picture as blockchain and tokenized asset adoption continue to accelerate.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Recurrent Energy secures $260m funding for Blue Moon Solar project
Recurrent Energy, a subsidiary of Canadian Solar, has closed a financial package of $260m for its upcoming solar energy facility, Blue Moon Solar, in Harrison County in the US state of Kentucky. The financial package is supported by US Bank through its subsidiary US Bancorp Impact Finance, which is providing tax equity and construction financing. The 94MW Blue Moon solar facility is currently under construction with an expected operational date in 2026. Upon completion, Recurrent Energy will maintain ownership and operation. Recurrent Energy CEO Ismael Guerrero stated: "We are pleased to invest in Harrison County, Kentucky. Blue Moon Solar will generate affordable, locally produced energy that will support Kentucky's economic growth. 'We are excited to complete the financing for Blue Moon Solar and grow our investments in Kentucky, thanks to US Bank and Constellation for supporting our energy projects.' The Blue Moon solar facility marks Recurrent Energy's first venture in Kentucky's renewable energy sector. It promises to bring hundreds of jobs to the local community during construction and substantial tax revenue post-completion. Harrison County judge and executive Jason Marshall stated: "Harrison County is open to investment, and we are pleased to work with Recurrent Energy on their newest energy facility. Blue Moon Solar will provide a major source of new tax revenue to our county." Constellation has committed to purchasing power and renewable energy certificates from Blue Moon through a power purchase agreement (PPA). Bancorp Impact Finance managing director of environment finance Darren Van't Hof stated: "We believe everyone has a role to play in creating a sustainable future, and financing a project like Blue Moon is one way we can be responsible stewards of the environment. "Blue Moon Solar is one of several projects we've financed for Recurrent Energy, and we're proud to support its work to expand sources of clean energy, strengthen the energy grid and drive local job creation." In April, 2025, Recurrent Energy announced the launch of operations for the Bayou Galion solar project, a 127MWdc (megawatts direct current) solar power plant located in northeastern Louisiana. Spanning 1,080 acres in Morehouse Parish, the project began generating electricity in November 2024. "Recurrent Energy secures $260m funding for Blue Moon Solar project" was originally created and published by Power Technology, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Copper prices have surged to record highs — and they could jump higher. Here's why
Copper is at the core of the American economy. It's in the wires of our pervasive electronics, in the walls of homes and in the engines of cars. Experts say President Donald Trump's plan for tariffs on the red metal could stymy the goal of boosting American manufacturing while potentially igniting inflation. Trump's July 8 announcement of a 50% tariff on copper imports beginning August 1 sent prices surging 13% in one day, up to a record high of $5.69 per pound. It was the biggest single-day increase in copper prices on record going back to 1968, according to FactSet. And those prices could just be a sign of things to come. A 50% tariff would be a 'massive tax on consumers of copper,' Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, said in a note. While Trump says his copper tariff is needed to spur domestic production due to national security concerns, there is no quick fix. The US imports over 50% of the copper it needs, primarily from South America, Hansen said, 'with no clear path to improving that for years to come.' That's because it takes almost 32 years, on average, from the discovery of mineable copper in the US to production, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. And the end result of a big and fast copper tariff could simply be higher prices for many items, economists say. 'A tariff-induced price premium risks making copper—and by extension, US manufacturing and infrastructure—materially more expensive,' Hansen said. Copper is highly conductive, making it a critical input for electrical and electronic products. Copper can be found in the chips in mobile phones, plumbing in houses and in the engines of cars. 'This is a vital metal for everyday use,' Rob Haworth, senior investment strategy director at US Bank's asset management group, told CNN. 'You probably don't go a day where you haven't used something that has copper in it.' As Trump's self-imposed August 1 tariff deadline approaches, businesses and investors don't know what will happen in the wake of a massive tariff on a key component of the economy — let alone if the president will follow through with it at all, considering his history of backing off tariff threats. Widespread impact Copper is one of the most widely used metals in the world. The typical American-made car has over 50 pounds of copper, according to the Copper Development Association, a trade group. And the price of copper has been rising in recent years. The growing market for electric vehicles and the expansion of data centers thanks to the artificial intelligence boom have helped drive global demand for copper. Copper prices this year have smashed through previous records amid Trump's threat of tariffs. Copper futures in New York have soared almost 39% this year, outpacing the S&P 500's 6% gain, bitcoin's 24% gain and gold's 26% gain. Trump's tariffs on metals, including steel and aluminum, are intended to bolster US supply chains. His administration also cited national security concerns for levying a tariff on copper. But an import tax on copper would raise production costs for manufacturers in industries including construction, electronic goods and automobiles, according to Grace Zwemmer, an associate economist at Oxford Economics. 'All these tariffs raise costs and therefore injure downstream manufacturing,' Maurice Obstfeld, a professor of economics at UC Berkeley and member of former president Barack Obama's council of economic advisers, told CNN. 'For the US, this seems like a fairly pointless act of self-harm,' Obstfeld added. Businesses would face higher costs because there aren't many viable substitutes for copper, according to Brandon Parsons, a practitioner of economics at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School. While aluminum can be a substitute, it is more flammable and does not have the same conductivity, making it less viable for using in items like semiconductor chips. 'There isn't really a good way for businesses or consumers to avoid these higher costs,' he said. 'It's going to be felt widespread through the economy.' Where does the US get its copper? Chile, Canada and Peru provided over 90% of US copper imports in 2024, according to the US Geological Survey. The United States in 2024 mined an estimated 1.1 million tons of copper, according to the US Geological Survey, meeting just under half of its consumption. Arizona was home to more than 70% of domestic copper production in 2024. Shifting economic incentives in the modern era and the opening of free trade have both contributed to a decline in US copper production, according to Pepperdine's Parsons. The United States in recent decades has produced less copper as the global economy liberalized, enabling the country to import relatively cheap copper from countries like Chile and allowing the US economy to expand to other industries. Industrial buyers and Wall Street traders in recent months have shipped enormous amounts of copper to the United States to get ahead of potential tariffs. Morgan Stanley estimates 400,000 tons, or roughly six months' worth of 'extra' copper was front-loaded and delivered to the US in the early months of 2025. The copper stockpiles could 'temporarily buffer' the market when tariffs go into effect, according to Ewa Manthey, a commodity strategist at Dutch bank ING. However, the buildup of copper won't last forever, and it'll be difficult for the US to produce enough copper domestically. At some point, the US will likely need to import more copper under the 50% tariff, which could risk a resurgence in inflation, Manthey said. 'Higher copper prices also risk higher inflation, raising costs for US manufacturers without a domestic alternative available,' Manthey said. How would tariffs impact you? It remains to be seen whether companies will absorb the higher costs or pass the costs onto consumers in the form of higher prices, although economic theory suggests businesses would pass on higher costs to consumers when possible. Wall Street and corporate America have been expecting tariffs on copper — just not 50%. 'Investors were caught off guard, as the market had been expecting a much lower tariff rate,' Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist at LPL Financial, said in an email. Smaller tariff rates such as 10% can be used strategically to encourage domestic manufacturing, economists say. But a rate as high as 50% could send a shock to markets, even leading to a drop in demand because prices are just too high. That could lead to slower economic growth across industries, such as a lull in home building. Plans to revive manufacturing and address national security concerns Trump has espoused using tariffs as a means to boost US manufacturing. But tariffs are not a panacea that will revive the manufacturing industry, Pepperdine's Parsons said. 'The rationale for this is to encourage production and investment in copper in the United States,' Parsons said. 'The issue is it's not like producing water, where you just open up the faucet. It could take years and years to open up a new copper mine, or even to expand production. So, while this does provide some incentive, it's something that's more long-run. You're going to feel the short-run pain.' Incentives like direct government subsidies or credits could promote domestic production of copper and fortify US supply chains, according to Parsons. While tariffs can help domestic companies sell more in the market, the higher prices can create unwanted ripple effects throughout the supply chain. Trump in February signed an executive order opening a Section 232 investigation into copper imports. That section of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act gives the president the authority to impose import duties to protect industries deemed vital to US national security. 'The United States faces significant vulnerabilities in the copper supply chain, with increasing reliance on foreign sources for mined, smelted and refined copper,' the executive order said. A Section 232 investigation comes with a 270-day deadline for an investigation, which means the Trump administration had until November to complete its review of copper, according to ING's Manthey. 'There are many foreign suppliers of copper, including close allies like Canada, so a national security rationale seems contrived,' Berkeley's Obstfeld said. Trump said in a social media post on July 9 confirming his intent to impose tariffs on copper that the metal is the second most-used metal in the Defense Department. But copper was not one of the 50 critical minerals designated by the US Geological Survey in 2022. The US Geological Survey is expected to publish an updated classification list for critical minerals this year. However, copper is considered a 'critical material' for energy, according to the Energy Department. 'The US has very limited current mining capacity,' Obstfeld said. 'It will take a decade or more to onshore copper production substantially. That will still leave copper prices much higher in the US, and in the meantime, American consumers and businesses will suffer even more.' Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Bangkok Post
4 days ago
- Business
- Bangkok Post
Mind the gap
Re: "Asia budding dividend zeal needs more support", (Opinion, July 14). When talking about dividend yields on stocks, it's always important to look at the so-called "yield gap". This is the difference between the average dividend yields of stocks and the yields of bank savings accounts in that country. For example, in the US, average stock dividend yields are barely 2-3% with US Bank saving account yields around 4-4.5%. While this is not mentioned in this article by Manishi Raychaudhuri, Thailand has many reputable companies yielding 5-7 or an even higher annual percentage, while Thai bank savings accounts yield only around 0.3%. This "yield gap" is at record levels at present and to my knowledge no country is close to this yield gap, anywhere. TDAC glee Re: "New online arrival cards target crime: Immigration touts system's convenience", (BP, April 27). I have used the online Thai Digital Arrival Card (TDAC) three times since it was introduced in May and I have found it easy to complete, with almost instantaneous delivery via email of a QR code for the TDAC. But curiously, not once have immigration police looked at my iPhone or opened the QR page; they simply proceeded to check my passport with my retirement visa and multiple re-entry permit, before putting in a re-entry stamp. A word of caution to people using the system for the first time. Make sure you use the government website to apply. If you Google TDAC, the first four or five entries that pop up are agencies wanting to charge you something like 2,000 baht, or even more if you want a rush job. This is a scam, because the TDAC is free and, as I said, delivery is almost instantaneous once you have completed and submitted the online form. David Brown Set in stone Re: "S112 fit for purpose", (PostBag, July 13). While I fully agree with everything that Burin Kantabutra writes, it perhaps glosses over the more serious problem. The Paul Chambers example, whilst apt, is really too easy, although apparently not easy enough to have stopped those who brought the charge under S112, yet again bringing Section 112 of the Criminal Code into global disrepute. On Jan 30, the United Nations' Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights noted the Thai lèse-majesté law is "both harsh and vague", while calling for it to be abolished. Contrary to Burin's concerns, the real problem is perhaps not the abuse of the law as written, but with the law itself exactly as it is written. Felix Qui Holiday hazards Re: "Not about safety", (PostBag, July 12) & "Safer tourism needed now", (Editorial, July 11). This July 11 editorial is correct. A recent study by the life insurance company Everly Life found that Thailand, unfortunately, makes the list of the top 10 dangerous countries in the world to visit. The study measured "dangerous" using such variables as crime and traffic fatality rates, sexual assaults, and human trafficking. It ranked Thailand as the 9th-most dangerous country in the world. This should give AM, the author of this PostBag letter, pause for thought the next time he dismisses Chinese visitors' concerns over safety in Thailand. There are many rich people in China, considering its population of over 1 billion, so his argument that the main reason why the Chinese are no longer coming here is that Thailand is too expensive is patently ridiculous! If anything, having visited China before, I find that it's China which is expensive, and not Thailand.
Times
12-07-2025
- Business
- Times
Plumber of payments keeps the money flowing at Elavon
Declan Lynch operates far from the hype of the fintech world. The chief executive of US Bank Europe, the American institution behind the ubiquitous Elavon brand, has been instrumental in building one of the largest payment-processing businesses in Europe from its Irish base over a period of nearly two decades. Elavon processes hundreds of billions of euros annually through its card payment terminals and ecommerce gateways, providing much of the essential financial plumbing for the retail, hospitality, airline, education and government services sectors. Customers range from corporations as big as Ryanair to local businesses as small as the fashion retailer McMullans of Arklow in Co Wicklow. This year marks US Bank's 25th in Ireland; Lynch has been in charge since 2006. In that time he has grown the business into a quiet but significant foreign direct investment success, overseeing several transformative acquisitions and expanding to employ more than 1,100 people across several locations in the country. In an industry increasingly dominated by flashy start-ups and aggressive marketing, Lynch is an outlier. His 19-year tenure at the helm of Elavon is a rarity in modern banking. While many fintechs proclaim their disruptive power, he prefers to operate quietly, more like a highly competent craftsman than a revolutionary. 'I wouldn't like to say it too loudly, but I think I'm the longest-serving bank CEO in Ireland,' he says, attributing his longevity to credibility and reliability — never a bad look in financial services — and comparing it to a much less glamorous business. 'Plumbing is not the most attractive profession or industry. A lot of it comes down to making sure that the pipes are flowing, that the service is available, that there's somebody at the end of the phone if you have a problem. That sort of track record and trust factor are critical.' So, not the flash, but the flow. Payments is a busy corner of the financial world right now, nonetheless. Last month AIB sold its half of AIB Merchant Services to its joint venture partner, Fiserv. In April Barclays closed a strategic partnership deal with Brookfield Asset Management that could result in the Canadian private equity firm eventually taking a 70 per cent stake in the bank's payment acceptance business. Around the same time, Global Payments bought Worldpay for $24.25 billion, making it one of the largest payment processors in the world. It isa crowded space, with the likes of SumUp, Square and Adyen all making inroads in Ireland in recent years after the pandemic cemented cards as the preferred payment method for most retail customers. 'It's a mixture of pure-play fintechs and more established players like ourselves,' Lynch says. 'We like to think of ourselves as having the agility of a fintech with the stability of a bank. There still is a good opportunity for somebody like Elavon to grow. There's still a tonne of cash to be displaced in Europe.' Lynch's career journey has always followed cash, in one way or another. After leaving the family farm in Cavan, he got his B Comm at University College Dublin before getting a postgraduate qualification in accounting and joining Deloitte in the late 1980s, a period he remembers as 'a pretty dire time in Ireland economically'. He says: 'A lot of people got pulled off audit to work on the receivership deals at the time. It was a case of showing up in some industrial estate out in Blanchardstown on a Monday morning with a bunch of security guys to lock the gates before the workers arrived. It was grim to be in the middle of it. But you really got to understand very, very quickly that cashflow is the lifeblood of any business. And when the cashflow dries up, the game's over.' Lynch got out of Deloitte after three years and headed for the newly established International Financial Services Centre, joining the treasury operations of a Canadian packaging company that had a group of subsidiaries across the European Union. It was a real frontier operation, set up in the days when the IFSC was more a concept than a location. 'We weren't even located in the IFSC because there was nothing there in 1989,' he says. 'So we were in the leafy environs of Dublin Industrial Estate, which is in Finglas, above one of the packaging plants.' His career took on a bit more glamour with a role on a mergers and acquisitions team at GE Capital, which was buying up a lot of vendor leasing companies in the 1990s. 'It was a case of make sure you've got five shirts ironed and be at the airport at eight o'clock on a Sunday night — you're going to Sweden,' he recalls. After a stint at Novell, the software company, Lynch set up his own treasury outsourcing services business, helping tech companies during the dotcom era manage their cashflows and payments during a period of frantic expansion. He sold the business to the New Jersey conglomerate JM Huber in 2004 when he realised it needed a bigger balance sheet to scale. 'Part of the deal was that I stay on for a year and then my plan was to take a year off and just travel and just take a breath,' he says. 'I got sort of three quarters of the way through that year and I got a call.' US Bank was looking to get a banking licence in Ireland. The company already had an Irish operation — a joint venture with Bank of Ireland — that it had set up in Arklow, Co Wicklow, in 2000 and then went through 'a period of pretty intense M&A'. Lynch joined in 2006 to integrate and consolidate the 'hodge podge' of businesses that US Bank had acquired over the previous few years and pull it together as a single legal entity with a more defined set of capabilities and a coherent service offering. That is how Elavon was born. Card payment technology and services were still evolving, and Elavon was a pure-play brand, operating across Europe from its Irish base, doing end-to-end processing for hundreds of thousands of merchants. Then Lynch's M&A experience came to the fore through a series of transformative acquisitions, beginning in 2010. US Bank was slightly unusual at the time for choosing Ireland rather than London as its European banking platform, but Lynch calls it a 'talent-led decision'. With the financial crisis in full swing, he set about hoovering up a lot of banking talent in Ireland that was, to say the least, underutilised after the 2008 financial crash. 'We hired a lot of good people from the Irish banks, PTSB in particular. People were a little bit frustrated maybe in terms of their career opportunities post-crisis.' Target No 1 was Bank of America's corporate trust business, based in Carrick-on-Shannon. The US retail banking company was suffering successive ratings downgrades and was forced by regulators to unload certain ratings-sensitive businesses. Next came Quintillion, an Irish fund services provider that had hit a growth wall and was looking for a bank partner to support its growth ambitions. Those two deals expanded US Bank's European horizons beyond payments, but what Lynch calls the bank's most significant acquisition doubled down on its payments pedigree. In late 2019 US Bank bought Sage Pay, an ecommerce platform, for €250 million. 'Right before the pandemic, we closed the deal on the day before the announcement to go home for a week,' Lynch says. 'In some ways, the pandemic was good to us. On the one hand, 50 per cent of our customers shut down overnight. But I think where the positive part of the pandemic was, it sort of really accelerated that displacement of cash for card.' Elavon and US Bank were kind of a safe haven for customers through that time, providing reliability and stability while many businesses had to suddenly reimagine their business models for a locked- down economy. 'US Bank is a 150-year-old Midwest [America] conservative organisation,' Lynch says. 'If you think of all the cycles financial services go through, we tend to miss the highs but we also tend to miss the lows. It's a very, very stable organisation. 'We're not a name that is top of mind, but you're going to see Elavon almost every time you tap your card.' The sense of stability could come in handy through the current uncertainty surrounding global trade and the US-Ireland business relationship, something Lynch says he is watching very closely. 'The Irish-US relationship from a business perspective, I never underplay it,' he says. 'It's been a key part of supporting us and helping us through our journey.' Notwithstanding the volatility around trade and possible impacts on global growth, the payments business is not standing still and Lynch is looking at both organic growth opportunities and partnerships, increasingly with the software world, where payments are increasingly embedded in larger merchant services packages. 'I think there is still a lot of opportunity for a player like us,' he says. 'If you look at the total transaction market in Ireland and Europe, it's 50 per cent cash, 50 per cent card.' What customers want now, he says, as non-cash payments continue to grow, is the kind of stability that a big bank operator can provide. 'We operate at 99.99 per cent,' he says. 'Uptime is critical. This is 24/7, 365 days a year. Payment space is evolving very quickly and to keep up requires investment. These are not small-dollar investments; it's infrastructure-heavy, tech-heavy investment. It doesn't come cheaply. Without throwing shade on others, that is a big differentiating factor.' Age: 59. 'But my Whoop says I'm 56.'Lives: Terenure, DublinFamily: married to Anne, with four adult childrenEducation: St Patrick's College, Cavan; B Comm and postgrad in accounting at University College DublinFavourite film: Once Upon a Time in AmericaRecent read: I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes. 'For some reason, I always gravitate towards the mafia section of a bookstore, but this is one I read recently and enjoyed.' I tend to start my day pretty early, around 6am. I like to get a bit of me-time in the morning, so I go to the gym for an hour or an hour and a half and then I get into Cherrywood. I try to divide my day into thirds. A third is typical employee engagement, one–on-ones, team meetings. A third I spend on business issues of the day. And then probably a third on more forward-looking stuff, including a good chunk of time spent with board members. I probably travel two weeks out of four, so I do a fair bit in the US and we have a big European footprint as well. I play quite a bit of golf on weekends; I'd probably call myself an avid golfer. I had a holiday cycling in Sardinia; I wouldn't call myself an avid cyclist. Obviously the usual sort of family stuff. We spend a bit of time in Rosslare.
