After five years of prolonged slump, 1996 may be the year when things in Japan get moving again.

No fast track but getting there. The success of central Europe's emergence depends on the region's ability to maintain coherent, long-term economic and social reforms. But the past five years have produced a mixed bag of results, as Jules Stewart reports.

Despite record profits, Australian banks face difficulties in the year ahead. Albert Smith looks at how the four major banks are positioned to handle a radical shake-up of the banking industry.

After a disastrous few years, Japanese securities houses have begun to rediscover how to make money in international business. They are cutting costs, building up proprietary trading operations and taking advantage of the demand from Japanese retail investors for foreign bonds. But can they ever catch up with their US and European rivals? Garry Evans reports.

Hôtel du Front Populaire (ci-devant Crillon), 10 Place de la Révolution (ci-devant Concorde), 75008 Paris, France.

Which were the world's most successful investment banks last year? Euromoney's unique poll of polls has the answers. The winners: Merrill and SBC Warburg.And a wooden spoon for Goldman Sachs, which slips from first to fourth. By Charles Piggott.

A sleight of hand, USExim cans the Kazakhs, Shrinking the discount, The battle for Asia, The communist spectre, Jezek fathers more reform

Family businesses have long been the engine of European growth - if not of European stock markets. But the deaths of the founders and the need for capital are encouraging an increasing number of family businesses to list. Steven Irvine and other Euromoney writers analyze the trend and talk to six family companies being eyed by the bankers.

Like many old bourses in emerging markets, the one in Cairo creaks a bit. Transforming it into a smooth-running, well-oiled machine will require changing attitudes as well as systems. But the need to attract foreign and domestic money to the corporate sector will probably ensure it comes right in the end. Nigel Ash reports.

Last month, the Russian government invited Russian commercial banks to hold in trust large blocks of shares in leading oil and natural resource companies in return for loans to the government. No-one in Russia expects the government to repay these loans when they fall due this September.

Russian banks and brokers face a bleak winter. Equity business generated from buying and selling privatization vouchers has dried up, and Russian companies - in urgent need of capital - will not be ready to access the international capital markets for another two to three years. Peter Lee looks at brokers' efforts to bolster the value of Russian company shares and to keep the foreign investors biting.

Optimists believe the new market in jumbo Pfandbriefe could become sophisticated, liquid and efficient enough to be regarded as a kind of baby Bund. Pessimists think overcoming image problems in the eyes of international investors will prove too difficult. Philip Moore reports.

by David Roche

The scrap over Creditanstalt defies description. The government wants to maximize sale proceeds but management thinks the bank is overpriced. Foreign bidders were invited although the government favours Austrian ownership. And an Austrian-led consortium favoured by the bank's management was rejected by the finance minister. Ronan Lyons looks at the confused attempts to sell Austria's second-largest bank.

Banking's real climbers, CSFB's football field, Rich man, poor man, Australian elephant, The Euro-Euro

Netting makes bankers' eyes glaze over. But close-out netting can make them money. By Christopher Stoakes.

Computers can do a lot to process today's explosion of information in financial markets - but they're only a tool. The ultimate processor and user of the information is man. Man is the subject and the object of financial analysis. Markets are a theatre of human behaviour. More and more quantitative analysts are redirecting their study of markets to the study of man. David Shirreff reports.

The professionals who left Wall Street firm Merrill Lynch last year compare it with George Orwell's Animal Farm. It's a pretty successful farm, and more human than most. But have the guys at the top pushed their teamwork ethos and those catchy slogans a little too far? Michelle Celarier reports

Maastrickery, NYSE raps Nomura, Equity placements, EIB's yen handout, Switzerland's test of strength