You’re considering an investment property or a second house in a Central American residential development—in Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua or elsewhere. The shiny brochure is impressive, the website looked great, the pictures blew you away, the marketing representative of the development says all the right things and you’re dead set on getting that beachfront lot…

Instead of being defeated by the political upheavals in Lebanon, the nation’s leading financial institution has acquired valuable banking lessons from repeated domestic crises as it embarks on a second wave of growth beyond its home borders. Blom Bank is parlaying its historic reputation for low-risk, innovative trade finance into full-service operations in some of…

Japan’s big banks, unburdened by heavy subprime losses, and stuck with sputtering growth at home, are once again investing and lending abroad, but investors should not expect a string of blockbuster buyouts. Only a few years removed from a bad-loan crisis that pushed many lenders to the brink of collapse and sparked widespread industry consolidation,…