On the heels of a bruising week of battling revelations of organised fraud and corruption in the distribution of agricultural funds, the government is being accused of dropping the ball on migration, after an EU-led delegation including Migration Minister Thanos Plevris was turned back at the border of Libya where it had arrived for talks on managing Mediterranean boat crossings.

How do violent conflicts shape cross-border lending? Using data on syndicated loans by 14,021 creditors to firms in 179 countries (1989–2020), we document a dual effect: foreign banks reduce overall lending relative to domestic banks but significantly increase financing to military and dual-use sectors during conflicts. This reallocation is stronger among lenders less specialized in the conflict country, more specialized in military lending, and domiciled in politically non-aligned nations. Effects are geographically contained and temporally limited, dissipating post-conflict.

We show theoretically how the anticipated cross-selling of loans incentivizes banks to offer lower deposit spreads to attract and retain depositors, more when policy rates are lower and future cross-selling is more valuable. Utilizing comprehensive data on every Norwegian bank household relationship, we then establish empirically how banks facing identical loan demand respond to policy rate cuts with greater deposit spread reductions for clients with higher cross-selling potential, thereby raising both deposit and loan growth.

The world experienced over 60 armed conflicts in 2024, a “historically high” number according to scholars in the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University. Consequently, the risks faced by multinational companies (MNCs) operating in conflict-torn regions, especially the Middle East and North Africa, have significantly intensified.