The latest Ibec Global Compass examines how global finance is splitting into different “blocs” shaped by politics, technology, and debt

Global finance is no longer a seamless tide, writes Jackie King, Executive Director, Ibec Global.

Capital now flows through channels defined by currency blocs, sovereign balance sheets, digital rails, and alliance networks, each with its own gatekeepers, rules, and political conditions.

Sovereign debt levels have reached historic highs (IMF, 2025; BIS, 2025).

Subsidy battles in green technology and industrial capacity are redrawing the investment map (EC, 2025; OECD, 2024).

Digital currencies and tokenised settlement are shifting control of liquidity flows (BIS, 2025).

For multinational leaders, the competitive edge will not just come from raising funds but from designing access, anticipating which capital venues (the jurisdictions and financial systems) will remain open, on what terms, and under whose influence.

In the fractured finance order, foresight over venue will be as valuable as capital itself. 

The latest Ibec Global Compass report looks at this from six different angles:

1 - Currency Blocs: Designing a Hedged, Multi-Venue Treasury

2 - Debt Constraint: Sovereign Credit as a Cap on Ambition

3 - Climate Capitalism and the Geopolitics of Subsidy

4 - Digital Finance Wars: Owning Your Capital Rails

5 - Europe’s Experiment in Fiscal Sovereignty

6 - Access as Strategy: Engineering the Capital Architecture

Conclusion: From Volume to Venue

Capital is no longer defined purely by its volume, but by its venue (the jurisdictions and financial systems through which it flows).

It flows through venues shaped by currency, law, and alliances, not just profitability.

For boards and chief executives, resilience will come from mastering the architecture of access: anticipating the shifts in currency blocs, fiscal priorities, subsidy regimes, digital rails, and supranational funding platforms.

The fractured finance order is not a crisis to be feared; it is a map to be mastered.

Those corporates who navigate it with foresight will not only survive they will set the terms for the next phase of global growth.