ICMA Centre Blog

My Year in Venice, Part 3: Student Life

By Georgia Nicklin, BSc Finance and Management with the University of Venice at the ICMA Centre, Henley Business School. Student life is very different in Venice compared to Reading. The major differences to consider are: where to do your supermarket shopping and how much you should budget, what to eat, where to socialise, and getting…

My Year in Venice, Part 2: Accommodation & Language

By Georgia Nicklin, BSc Finance and Management with the University of Venice at the ICMA Centre, Henley Business School. For the duration of my stay in Venice, I decided to live in a student residence called ESU Venezia.

My Year in Venice, Part 1

By Georgia Nicklin, BSc Finance and Management with the University of Venice at the ICMA Centre, Henley Business School. Georgia is a student at the ICMA Centre studying BSc Finance and Management. The degree is a unique three year experience, where students spend their second year at Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice. As the first…

Are FX swaps and forwards missing global debt? Why the BIS is wrong.

In a fascinating piece of statistical detective work published in the latest BIS Quarterly Review, three of its foremost staff members argue that the use of FX swaps and forwards is hiding a massive quantity of debt because current accounting conventions place it off balance sheet. They estimate that, in respect of US dollar debt,…

Five Finance Podcasts to Satisfy Your Inner-Geek

If by some miracle you have arrived at this point in your life and haven’t heard the word “podcast”, you might very well be some form of alien creature. Podcasts are simply recorded audio files, like a radio show, but available for you to listen to at any time. Recently, podcasting (at least in America, where I’m…

Taking ‘Topics in Finance’? You’ll want to read this… (Don’t worry. It’s good!)

Topics in Finance: The secret prize you didn’t know existed As another Spring Term sets off, flashbacks of last year come to mind. I was in the third and final year of my BSc in Finance and Investment Banking degree at the ICMA Centre. ’Twas the year of incredibly high expectations, stress like you’ve never…

No more culture shock: Adjusting to life in the UK as an international student

My name is Gao Tingting and I’m currently studying MSc International Securities, Investment and Banking at the ICMA Centre, Henley Business School. I chose to study in the UK because I wanted to have an enriching study experience. Since starting I have seen so many new and different things here as an international student, such as the…

Getting through to the UK Investment Banking Series finals

By Brandon Rodrigues, third year BSc Finance & Investment Banking student at the ICMA Centre I had the opportunity to participate in this year’s UK Investment Banking Series (UIBS) event, and I must say it was a fun ride. UIBS is an annual competition organized by 5 finance societies of various universities. It consists of…

Still fretting about re-hypothecation

There is a widely quoted paper re-use and re-hypothecation by Egemen Eren — Intermediary Funding Liquidity and Rehypothecation as Determinants of Repo Haircuts and Interest Rates (Institute of Global Finance, 2015) — which provides another example of the danger for researchers of disregarding the difference between the re-use of collateral sold in repo (re-selling) and…

Academics, you re-hypothecate at your risk!

In a blog in May 2015, I tried to explain that, outside the US repo market, it was incorrect to use the term ‘re-hypothecation’ to describe the use of collateral purchased in a repo by its buyer. Such use is usually termed ‘re-use’ but would be better called ‘re-sale’. The crux of the matter is…