Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, knows a thing or two about banking, and isn’t afraid to share his views. He sat on the UK’s Committee for Banking Standards. Last year, he took on the payday lenders and called on the UK authorities to promote regional banks based outside London. But there was a time when he was a big fan of British banks. That was when he was the treasurer of Enterprise Oil, back in the 1980s.

"When you have so much money, you can buy everything. But you cannot buy the French justice system. You will have to submit to its rules. The budget of the French justice system is less than the sum diverted by Mr Ablyazov from the Russian Federation alone."

"What’s the future for dealer-to-client platforms? They’re going to go the same way as dealer chatrooms"

If convention becomes the rule, then the long, boozy business lunch in banking and financial markets reached outlaw status some time ago.

Friday 13th is not normally a day when you’d do anything risky. But this December, in London, it was decreed to be ‘Wear your Christmas jumper to work day’.

We like a bit of Christmas spirit as much as the next guy: tequila and bourbon being particular favourites. But the Euromoney office’s latest Christmas card haul left us slightly underwhelmed and, in some cases, just plain confused.

The Financial Times recently ran a video on its website about the power of hair.

Poor Ross McEwan. The new CEO of RBS came straight into the job and had to fight off attempts to break his bank up.

“All ABS were perceived as too risky due to the US experience in the subprime mortgage markets. But this regulation is like calibrating the price of flood insurance on the experience of New Orleans for a city like Madrid” Yves Mersch, board member of the ECB, exposes the absurdity of capital treatment of asset-backed securities in Europe (see Chain reaction: Can the need for SME finance set Europe’s securitization market free?)

In our November cover story, Euromoney reported extensively on the record-breaking $49 billion Verizon bond deal. We acknowledged the scale of the achievement in selling the bonds, but questioned whether they were sold at a give-away price. The sharp spike in the price of the bonds since launch suggests this was the case. Fast forward to dinner with a leading fixed income fund in November. They were one of the cornerstone investors in the Verizon deal. They had just received a Christmas card from the telco’s senior management, thanking them for investing in the deal.

The Choir: Sing While You Work

“The deal has held up very well; it is trading at 17, 18, OK let’s call it 20”

Asia’s richest man appears to follow just three people on Twitter: the political giants that are president Barack Obama; former Mr Olympia and Conan the Barbarian Arnold Schwarzenegger; and senator John McCain. Despite tweeting only twice – once about the meaning of life and once about being content with his life’s work, Li Ka-shing has 1,429 followers.

Is it time for bank CEOs to put their IPO money where their mouth is?

Euromoney’s business cards open many doors in the financial community. But we never realized the full extent of their powers until they nearly shut down one of the world’s busiest airport terminals.

"The price was absolutely ludicrous and people were openly asking if the old man had finally lost it"

"You cannot call that many people on the streets for just one park"

Much of Euromoney’s editorial desk is rather obsessed with the US TV drama Homeland. The ‘is or isn’t he a terrorist’ twists surrounding former US marine Nick Brody have kept us all hooked, despite the increasingly far-fetched storylines the writers of the series have offered up.

Members of the fourth estate are often not at their brightest early in the morning. However, when Euromoney found ourselves sitting in the foyer of a West End hotel last month awaiting a breakfast meeting with a US-based senior financier, even we suspected that something might be amiss.

"The first person to hire me in the 1980s hired me to buy bonds for him because he simply couldn’t take the pain of doing it himself any more. He had been investing in bonds for 10 years and had never seen anything go up"

"The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it." Could these inspiring words from former Wall Street crook now motivational speaker Jordan Belfort persuade director Martin Scorsese to hurry up editing the first cut of his film of Belfort’s drug-fuelled rise and fall as head of boiler-room brokerage Stratton Oakmont? ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ had been slated to open in November – perfect timing for its star, Leonardo DiCaprio, playing Belfort, to make his run for the Oscar that has so far unaccountably eluded him.

The path to success in investment banking these days is pretty much preordained: top university, first-class degree, ball-breaking spell as an intern, some sort of post-grad qualification and no time for any outside interests.

"The day one of the big oil companies first invoices China for oil in renminbis and receives payment in Chinese government bonds as result is what will really open people’s eyes"

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China’s European headquarters in Luxembourg City is a prime piece of real estate.

"It is borrowers’ own issuance patterns that have led to this state of illiquidity. And what are they doing about it? Nothing. We need dealers and corporate treasurers to engage more constructively on this"

"Tell them to start buying something, will you?"

These days banks are desperate for the next business or product line that is capital light, highly profitable and offers masses of potential to command a loyal following.

Euromoney has been known from time to time to have lunch with the great and the good of the financial markets. It’s a good way to talk to bankers in an environment in which they are comfortable – luxurious restaurants. It also allows our journalists a unique insight into a world – luxurious restaurants – that is otherwise off limits to a humble hack. In Hong Kong last month Euromoney enjoyed a slap-up lunch with a head of investment banking, a chief operating officer and a senior press officer from a large Wall Street bank. We were invited to order anything on the menu and even broke our usual strict and complete abstinence from alcoholic beverages to enjoy a particularly fine Pinot Noir.

Hedge fund managers have plenty to grapple with right now, not least how to hold their clients in the two and 20 position.

Want to get introduced to senior executives of Facebook, Google, Yahoo? Or looking for funding from the largest venture capitalist firms? Why not head to Burning Man? The hedonistic week-long arts festival that takes places every August in Nevada on a dry lake called La Playa is best known for the elaborate costumes, or lack thereof, worn by the 60,000 plus attendees.