The OMFIF Podcast

As natural disasters accelerate in both frequency and severity around the world, it is becoming increasingly difficult for insurers to provide protection to people and businesses alike. Regula Hess, financial sector engagement lead at WWF Switzerland, and Arne Holzhausen, head of outreach at Allianz Investment Management, joins Sarah Moloney, editorial director at OMFIF, to discuss the climate insurance protection gap and how it threatens global financial stability. They explore the key findings of a new white paper published by WWF. ‘Tackling the insurance protection gap: leveraging climate and nature to increase resilience’ finds that the widening gap between total economic losses after a natural disaster and the proportion that is insured is becoming a material concern for financial regulators, central banks and governments. The conversation digs into why nature loss and the degradation of ecosystems are central to the issue and looks at how the impacts go far beyond risks to property.

Tara Hariharan, managing director and head of research at NWI Management, joins Mark Sobel, chief economist and vice chair at OMFIF to discuss emerging market investing.  They explore how to manage the volatility associated with current market volatility in light of developments in the Middle East while combining those with views and assessments of underlying EM country economic developments. 

Michael Pettis, a China-focused economist and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, outlines why China keeps leaning on credit and investment. He discusses how overinvestment creates great infrastructure yet masks economic imbalance. He explains low household consumption, cycles across infrastructure, property and manufacturing, and how currency and export dynamics shift income toward industry.

As the new generation of financial infrastructure takes shape, the need for sophisticated tools to inform policy-makers is growing. To encourage innovation and preserve security, it is vital that policy-makers have the capacity to interact with and closely supervise new systems. Sandboxes are a key tool for this process. Carmelle Cadet, chief executive officer and founder of EmTech joins OMFIF to discuss the nuances of how sandboxes work and how they should be constructed.

Discussions around central bank digital currencies typically begin with the intended use case. If the CBDC is for retail use, then all the subsequent discussions focus on retail, and the reverse is true for wholesale. The two are treated as separate discussions. Abbas Albasha, senior strategy consultant at Giesecke+Devrient joins Lewis McLellan, head of content at OMFIF’s Digital Monetary Institute, to discuss why this approach is too restrictive, pointing out that a single CBDC system can be designed to meet both retail and wholesale needs flexibly without need for two separate systems.

Max Castelli, head of strategy for sovereign institutions, and Philipp Salman, director of strategy for sovereign institutions at UBS Asset Management, join Yara Aziz, senior economist at OMFIF, to discuss how shifting geopolitics shaped reserve management in 2025, and what sovereign investors should watch for in 2026. They cover the macro outlook, longer-term portfolio strategy, US concentration risk and the debate around the dollar’s role in reserves.

In the coming year, renewed attention should be made to explore how governments can shift from simply spending more to spending smarter. Drawing on new insights from the International Monetary Fund and fresh empirical work from OMFIF and EY, we examine why productive public investment remains elusive, what distinguishes high-performing public institutions and how fiscal policies can better support high-productive investment.   Mark MacDonald, global public finance management leader at EY, and Galen Sheer, senior economist, fiscal affairs at the IMF, join Andrea Correa, senior economist at OMFIF, to unpack the practical reforms finance ministries can take, from improving allocative and technical efficiency to building credible evaluation systems, and offer next steps that policy-makers can act on immediately to drive better long-term outcomes.

Sovereign debt scholar Anna Gelpern, Scott K. Ginsburg professor of law and international finance at Georgetown University, joins Mark Sobel, US chair at OMFIF, to discuss the theory of the case for debt transparency, the need for more and better public debt disclosure and the impact of poor disclosure on low-income countries and emerging markets.    Gelpern also explores ideas on how to tackle the challenge, and shares an update on the Sovereign Debt Forum's Public Debt Is Public project with Georgetown’s Massive Data Institute.

Jeremy Cunningham, an investment director at Capital Group with deep expertise in fixed income markets, dives into the dynamics of European sovereign debt. He discusses the recent stabilization of inflation and the European Central Bank's neutral rates. The intriguing BTP–OAT repricing highlights fiscal improvements in Italy against French risks. Cunningham also examines how EU's expansion as a AAA issuer is reshaping credit structures and the implications of creating a euro safe asset, predicting a future of tighter sovereign spreads.

Dennis Shen, chair of the Macroeconomic Council at Scope Ratings, shares insights on the global economic outlook for 2026. He discusses the potential risks of inflation, geopolitical tensions, and the challenges facing major economies like the U.S., China, and Europe. Shen warns about U.S. fiscal deficits influencing Federal Reserve policies and assesses China's efforts to navigate its housing crisis. He also emphasizes the need for caution in European fiscal limits and highlights systemic vulnerabilities in financial markets, driven by high valuations and non-bank leverage.