Coming up in Euromoney magazine's IMF issue...

September 2009

The future of banking: Banking's next top model

Euromoney September 2009

Bank business models have to change. Capital requirements will be higher. Leverage and risk will be lower. But there is a danger that regulators will try to make the system too safe. That’s if they ever manage to coordinate their actions. In the meantime, bank leaders are trying to find the best model for their own institutions, while managing the fallout from the credit crunch and second-guessing the lawmakers. Peter Lee reports.

September 2008

Banks struggle to put their house in order ... before outsiders do it for them

Euromoney September 2008

Even as they delever, shed assets, raise capital and hoard liquidity against further hits, banks know they must also fundamentally change the rotten underlying business practices that led them to disaster. If they can’t, even those that manage to survive this disaster will fall victim to the next. That’s if the regulators don’t shut them down first. Peter Lee reports on an industry trying to relearn the basics.

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The new colour of money

Euromoney September 2007

Global warming is the biggest issue facing society. Markets can play a crucial role in combating climate change. Banks see a huge opportunity to be agents for good – and make plenty of money in the process. How big can green finance become? Clive Horwood investigates.

September 2006

The New Economics Arms Race

Euromoney September 2006

The US is buried under a mountain of debt, much of it owned by past or current enemies. The ageing, ill man of Europe gets older and sicker. New economies of the Middle East, Latin America, emerging Europe and Asia are using windfalls to build for the future, and exert their influence across the globe. This is the new financial order. Markets will never be the same again.

September 2005

How Europe's governments have enronized their debts

Euromoney September 2005

Europe's government bond markets are built on a lie. Ministries of finance have adopted corporate financing techniques to give a false impression of their true debt levels. Regulators appear unwilling or unable to do anything about it. Investors and taxpayers ought to know. Mark Brown and Alex Chambers reveal all.

A financial system at breaking point

Euromoney September 2004

Iraq and Argentina's debt problems will dominate this month's IMF/World Bank meetings, with the size of their liabilities casting doubt on the international financial system's ability to cope.

September 2003

The new breed

What are the defining traits that good investment bankers share? Energy, creativity, entrepreneurship, willingness and ability to take risk, the strength of intelligence to form independent views of the world and the courage to back them: all traits that tend to be driven out of people when they become institutionalized within large organizations under cynical leaders. Everyone toiling at the coalface in a large bank should take lessons from the stories that follow of those who have quit to set up on their own. There's never been a better time to do it.

September 2002

The end of free markets

Euromoney September 2002

Is the three-year equity bear market nearing its end? Or is it just the beginning of a financial and economic collapse that could shake the very core of the free-market capitalist system?

September 2001

Argentina stares into the abyss

Euromoney September 2001

Argentina is looking at the worst case of deflation that the world has seen since the US great depression in the 1930s, and it is hard to see where the necessary boosts in confidence and growth are going to come from to break this confidence crisis.

September 2000

IMF: Beware! Bad banks in operation

Euromoney September 2000

Bankers and their regulators converging on Prague for the IMF/World Bank meetings this month should be nervous about the vulnerability of the world financial system to attack - not by aliens, hackers or international terrorists but by the shortcomings of thousands of interdependent institutions. Highly correlated and linked financial markets mean contagion can spread in seconds. Short of rebuilding national barriers, like electronic iron curtains, there's no way to isolate ourselves from contamination. The reforming countries of central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are a weak link. They need more help and example from the west. Bringing in foreign strategic investors isn't a panacea, as the following pages show.

September 1999

Finance and the internet: The new battleground

Euromoney September 1999

Forget about the euro. Forget about Y2K. These are no more than simple exercises in crisis management. E-commerce is what you should be preparing for: get the power of the internet around you. It is a power that is revolutionizing equities trading, a power likely to spread into core investment banking, in the process stripping away the inefficiencies previously integral to the financial system. Established market leaders already face an array of upstart competitors. There are new banks, new trading systems. Pricing and research are the main targets. All-comers now have access to liquidity. Huge amounts of research are freely available. Ma, Pa and the Belgian dentist can pile in there with the best of them. All under the cloak of anonymity. As a senior investment banker puts it: "This business used to be a pitched gun-battle. It could get messy but you knew who the opponents were. Not any more. It feels as if we're being shot at from every direction." Heed his words but don't delay in joining the fray. Three years will be too late. E-commerce is the power of the future. But it's here now. Antony Currie goes behind the wires to report from the new frontier.

September 1998

Global capital turns nasty

Euromoney September 1998

Who is surprised by the savage way markets have punished politicians, bankers, speculators and economists? The structure of financial markets needs a rethink

September 1997

Winning the China game

Euromoney September 1997

The biggest contest in the 21st century will be to win in China. Whether it's IPOs, M&A or mutual funds, growth forecasts for China put all other markets in the shade. But the world's biggest potential market is also the toughest to crack. What's the right strategy? Steven Irvine looks at how the major investment banks are positioning themselves.

September 1996

Financial shocks: where next?

Euromoney September 1996

Financial crises have a habit of hitting where the world least expects. No-one predicted that disaster would strike Barings in Singapore, the Mexican peso, Daiwa Bank, the copper market, Morgan Grenfell Asset Management ­ to mention only the worst debacles of the past year. So where is next? Euromoney writers identify some possibilities. A crash in credit cards? Gridlock in foreign exchange settlements? A catastrophic loss of confidence in Hong Kong after the handover to China? First, Brian Caplen reports on the results of brainstorming with forecasters and analysts and highlights some dangers ahead