Vice president, operations, Atlas Ventures

Contagion from US domestic corporate bond markets infected Latin American debt in the last months of the year, reversing earlier strong performance by Latin bonds that rallied on the improving credit fundamentals of Mexico and Brazil. It’s one of the downsides for Latin borrowers of having their foreign debt now predominantly owned by so-called crossover investors, not Latin specialists. These nervous buyers bring added volatility to a market where periodic panics, such as that recently surrounding Argentina, are a regular feature. They won’t even consider financing the region’s corporate borrowers, which must now hope domestic markets develop quickly. Danielle Robinson reports

In e-finance developments the day of the independent entrepreneur capturing a chunk of the market is over – and maybe the notion was never a runner. Banks and other financial institutions now dominate the e-finance cutting edge through direct and indirect investment. Britt Tunick reports

Banks around the world have browbeaten their regulators into accepting so-called hybrid tier one securities issued by special purpose vehicles. Now the investment bankers who arrange capital issues are looking for the next challenge of finding new issuers for these securities.

Several banks are benefiting from the slew of former DLJ bankers who have decided that their new owners, CSFB, are not for them. Lehman and Salomon Smith Barney have done particularly well in the US, and UBS Warburg and Deutsche Bank are not far behind. But in Europe another name has joined the list, and it may be a surprise to some: Bank of America.

A three-way merger has created Mizuho, Japan’s and the world’s biggest bank by assets. If the deal works – and legal issues will postpone full integration for some time – the new leviathan may be a powerhouse. But is management up to the task? And will Japan’s notoriously difficult market let them do what they want?

Vice-chairman, Barclays Capital

Among all the many new online marketplaces for trading, issuing and offering research on bonds, none is as ambitious in its scope as BondBook, the alternative trading system launched this summer by Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Salomon Smith Barney, which Deutsche Bank also joined in September, as a founding equity partner.

Turning money and small-value payments into digital form doesn’t interest the banks – it’s against their interests and too expensive. Into the vacuum have stepped hundreds of payment schemes, many of them claiming they have found the Holy Grail. These boasts are premature. Some ideas are elegant but don’t have critical mass. Worse still, they rely on those indifferent beasts, the banks. Find your way through the Darwinian jungle with the help of David Shirreff

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