Investment bankers travelling home in the City one evening at the end of September were treated to a shocking sight: that of beaming, tie-less Mike Sherwood looking straight at them from the front page of London’s Evening Standard newspaper. Woody was surrounded by young school-leavers from London’s capital, who were lined up to take part in a new apprentice scheme endorsed by The Standard called ‘Ladder for London’. The aim is to give smart kids from deprived inner-city areas a chance of a successful career.

"The problem for the hedge fund industry is finding alpha, which at the moment is as rare as rocking-horse shit"

We could build capital to the moon and we would not have to worry about an institution failing, but the economy would not be there”

The stunning win by the European Ryder Cup team at Medinah Country Club ranks as one of the greatest sporting turnarounds of all time. This is a tournament where players wear their national colours, rather than those of their sponsors. But many financial institutions do sponsor golfers in their regular day-jobs. So which did best at Medinah?

Euromoney’s visit to Bogotá coincides with the final of the Olympic women’s BMX final. The race is under way at Corredores Asociados and for a moment the Colombian firm’s trading room is transfixed on a television screen that isn’t displaying financial updates. Cleaners, visitors and traders join together to cheer on Mariana Pajon, who wins gold.

We don’t expect everyone to agree with the decisions we make in our global Awards for Excellence. In fact, at Euromoney we welcome constructive criticism and a healthy debate.

As a wonderful summer Olympics in London drew to its close, the City got back to work last month. For one British gold medallist, though, the glamour was only just beginning.

Citi has been busy rebuilding in recent years. Its latest attempt to put the crisis behind it came last month, when it settled with investors for $590 million over claims it failed to disclose the full extent of its dealings in the sub-prime market.

Euromoney reported here last month how bank PRs were struggling with their bank Facebook pages – but now a former Myspace senior executive has come up with an alternative way for banks to use social networking.

"They would overly emphasize the 120% debt-to-GDP ratio as a means to squeeze the private sector to accept a lower interest rate on their future claims. They also kept hidden throughout the negotiations the amount of money they were going to put into the Greek rescue package"

It’s hard to imagine it was ever a good idea – setting up a Facebook page for a bank. Yet several PRs were forced to do just that and are now regretting it.

"Banking is a horrible business – we just haven’t figured out a better way of making sure things are funded. Once we have, then we can get rid of it"

The world’s top banks have little to celebrate at the moment. But a silver lining might come in the form of sports teams or individuals sponsored by banks racking up successes.

Lord Myners – formerly the financial services secretary in Gordon Brown’s government and before that a member of the court of directors of the Bank of England – informed Parliament this month of a particularly cunning ploy that one member of the BoE’s financial stability committee devised in 2006 or 2007 in response to the looming crisis.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise after a month in which two big UK banks have been at the centre of global scandals that the country might cast around for possible new, untarnished entrants to the sector.

As the start date of the London Olympics approached in July, the big story was not one of sport but one of corporate ineptitude.

"I told my banker that while it looked like the bank was lending me £5 million and it was certainly charging me for £5 million, it was really only lending me £2.5 million. I wonder how many times that has happened"

When things get really tough in the eurozone, politicians in the region, rather than perusing A treatise on money or Essays on the Great Depression, have a strange habit of reaching for – an atlas.

The world’s leading banks have been grappling for a long time with the problem of how to use social media.

Henrys (high earners not rich yet) are the biggest drivers of consumer retail spending, and have increased their appetite for cruising.

"We have spent the last 12 months focused on advising and executing clients" We were a bit worried when a bank that has radically reduced the number of core clients it covers told us how it was achieving its strategy

Over a pleasant June afternoon at the Queen’s Club in west London, Euromoney learns more than it ever expected to about the economics of tennis sponsorship. BNP Paribas sponsors a lot of tennis tournaments – hundreds in fact, including the majors, many of the ATP tour events, masters, seniors, juniors, possibly extra-terrestrials. Rather than negotiating the contracts en masse, it has a dedicated team that specializes in negotiating each one individually. It’s worth the effort. Many of the lesser tour events are now broadcast on free-to-air national TV channels for many hours each day, offering near constant exposure.

"I have never in my life seen Spain in such a difficult moment as this. We’re trying to do as much as we can for the country. The situation in the country worries me, but the situation of the bank does not. Santander is in a great position. Our subsidiaries model has been totally vindicated. The group is strong, even when one part of the group is weakened"

Santander spends huge sums promoting its brand in the glorified world of Grand Prix racing. It sponsors races across continents. Its chairman Emilio Botín is often seen in the pit lane.

It may be a poor relation to the Rugby Sevens, but in football-mad Asia the Citi Soccer Sevens, held in Hong Kong, is starting to gain a strong following.

"Investing for impact is the most important evolution in investing we have seen in our lifetime"

Knowing your client is a big part of any business relationship. Finding out what they like to do, what their interests are and developing an understanding of their personality is vital. So when Mark Zuckerberg turned up for Facebook’s much vaunted and, as it later turned out, hugely anticlimactic initial public offering on Nasdaq, he must have been delighted that Bob Greifeld, the exchange’s chief executive, had taken note of two of Zuckerberg’s most obvious non-geeky interests: dressing-down and hoodies.

The Icma held its 44th AGM in Milan in May – a packed event at which the industry’s great and good wrestled with the many challenges facing the market. Before the meeting, however, the organizers must have wrestled with one aspect of the venue, the stock exchange in Milan’s Piazza Affari. It is home to both the Borsa Italiana and a 36-foot sculpture by Italy’s most famous contemporary artist, Maurizio Cattelan, the meaning of which is hard to misinterpret. The giant hand, with middle finger extended, has been a feature of the square since 2010, when it was originally meant to be on display for just 10 days. But the Milanese seem to have taken it to heart, and it has remained, dubbed by the locals ‘il dito’ (the finger).

Rich Ricci, the co-head of Barclays’ banking and markets division (until recently known as Barclays Capital), made history in April. No, not for the size of his bonus – but for the success of the racehorses that he owns.

"If you call yourself a relative return fund, you need to actually sell things to make that return. Lots of asset managers seem to have forgotten that"