It took regulators one long year to work out what exactly Citigroup did wrong in August 2004 on the EuroMTS trading platform. In the interim, Citi has apologized repeatedly for its actions, perhaps because the firm itself has been the biggest victim. Having lost a fair chunk of fees underwriting business – apart from when the Greek debt office broke step in March on its €5billion 32-year deal – the firm has been notably absent in benchmark euro sovereign new issues since the misguided trade. Although some rival bankers suspect Citigroup has still been involved indirectly in the primary European government bond marks by carrying out swaps for new issues, its last euro trade of note for the Republic of Italy – the sovereign said to have taken particular issue with the rogue trade – came way back in February 2004. While Citi continues to enjoy success in other sectors of the international bond markets, the firm must be hoping that it will return to favour soon.

UK boutique warehouses and bulks up fund managers' troublesome unwanted shares, offering a return within three years

With a long history in the region, the most extensive network of any bank and a full suite of financial products, Citigroup is the biggest force in Asian banking. Yet it is still facing challenges. Chris Leahy spoke to Robert Morse, chief executive officer, corporate & investment banking, Citigroup Asia Pacific, about the bank's performance in Asia

A new book explores how the Florentine dynasty lent money and still went to heaven. Mark Johnson looks at the ways in which Italy's fifteenth-century bankers circumnavigated religious prohibitions to make their margins

Saudi Arabia's Capital Markets Authority has moved closer to full implementation of the 2003 capital markets law by announcing the imminent licensing of non-bank financial intermediaries. CMA governor Jammaz Al-Suhaimi said in late May that regulations on the establishment of brokerages would soon be issued; this will put an end to Saudi commercial banks' monopoly on share trading in the kingdom. However, foreigners look set to remain excluded from offering brokerage services. Nahed Taher, senior economist at National Commercial Bank (NCB), and an adviser to the CMA committee reviewing the brokerage regulations, says the rules should appear by mid-July. They will be accompanied by rules regarding applications for asset management and financial advisory licences. She expects that financial advisory companies will be required to have minimum capital of SR400,000 (just over $100,000) while brokerages will need minimum capital of SR2 billion (about $500 million).

Fund management:

The US firm is committed to breaking into the European debt markets – again

The US firm's business mix is making it more difficult to bring success in the primary markets

Ameritrade stays independent and buys TD Waterhouse instead

The tool will track the euro against major trading currencies and provide an important non-central bank benchmark

Investors may need more convincing if the inflation-linked market is to take off

What does it take for banks and investment banks to excel? Obviously they need customers, products, capital, technology, sound strategy, good people and leadership. That's tough enough to assemble, as is managing the balance between customer business and own-account trading. But the characteristic that bankers themselves talk about most as the one that distinguishes winning firms from the rest is even tougher to define and measure. It is culture.

GREs get a pick-up from rating change Government-related entities (GREs) got a substantial lift from Moody's Investors Service when the credit rating agency

Cash-rich investors are looking to put their money to work

Brokers are looking to counterbalance the effects of exchange consolidation

Governments swap to raise creditworthiness

In another example of Hutchison Whampoa raising cash to continue the long-term funding of its loss-making 3G business, the conglomerate announced in June the sale of stakes in Hong Kong's port operations to Singapore arch-rival PSA International. The group, led by Hong Kong's richest man, Li Ka-shing, announced the sale of a 20% interest in cash cow Hutchison International Terminals (HIT) and a 10% stake in Cosco-HIT, a joint venture with China Ocean Shipping (Group) Co.

Emerging-market countries will enter new territory next year. For the first time since the asset class was established in the late 1980s, these nations will become net creditors in the global economy, according to data from Fitch Ratings.

Santander's retail banking specialists' biggest challenge to date will be to turn around the fortunes of Abbey. Can the Spanish bank's model be successfully applied to the highly competitive UK market?

As nominal returns have fallen, investing in hedge funds has become more difficult. Recent high-profile failures in the UK and Asia illustrate that more than ever, it's important to pick the right strategy and the right manager

"In 1994 banks held 70% of all loans. That's now dropped to 29%. Institutional investors now hold 64% of loans. That's not syndicated lending, it's capital markets. They need to change the name."

"Alan Greenspan is positively giddy about the beneficial effects of credit derivatives," said Frank Partnoy at the Euromoney Global Borrowers Forum in London in June.

Germany's deal shows how corporate techniques are firming up government balance sheets

People moves:

Whole loan sales will offer a growing funding alternative for mortgage lenders

Fighting corruption, the scourge of the Philippines, was a major platform of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's election campaign in 2004. Elected, one would expect her to be proud of the zeal with which some in her administration are tackling the issue. It seems some of her colleagues were not so certain, however, and chose to take matters into their own hands.

The bank is set to snatch Goldman's crown for the first half of 2005

The proposed removal of a cap on pension funds' foreign holdings could change the shape of Canadian fund management

Singapore: CAO executives charged

The masters of retail banking | Getting back to the Abbey habit | Awards for excellence - Best bank

Bank of America announced in June its intention of investing $3 billion for a 9% stake in China Construction Bank, China's second-biggest state lender, as part of a strategic move into the country. In a deal that took the market by surprise, Bank of America stated that it had entered into agreements with CCB to provide strategic assistance in relation to, inter alia, corporate governance, risk management, credit cards, consumer banking and treasury services. Bank of America is presumably salivating over the prospect of CCB's 136 million retail accounts and 14,500 branches.

Investors keen on domestic market exposure are to be catered for by a new index range

Relations between president and prime minister deteriorate

Russia: Finance minister issues warning

CNOOC, China's state-controlled international oil company, launched the first contested bid by a Chinese company when it announced an all-cash offer for Unocal, a US oil and gas company with assets in Asia. CNOOC's offer values Unocal equity at $18.5 billion and outbids the recommended $17 billion shares-and-cash deal from US oil major Chevron. The Chinese company's move is expected by the market to lead to a protracted bidding war.

Venezuela's president has begun to put his anti-capitalist rhetoric into effect

Germany's industrial heartland, the Ruhr, is adapting well to a world after steel and coal. But when the country's top bankers met there in Essen last month they wondered long and hard about the ability of the rest of Germany to cope with economic change

Schell to Citi Citigroup has hired Michael Schell to become vice-chairman of global banking from law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, where he was senior partner and senior member of the mergers and acquisitions group. Schell will take up his position at the beginning of August. This is the second senior hire by Citigroup into its advisory business in two months, following the recruitment of Raymond McGuire from Morgan Stanley in May.

ECNs have sold themselves by claiming to offer fast, competitive, electronic execution. But research suggests only the electronic claim is true.

Signs of a revival of investor interest in convertible arbitrage hedge fund strategies as funds spot opportunities in a depressed market

Equity markets are geared for a surge in Chinese issues

Economy shows further signs of life

Subordinated debt gives treasurers a new means of raising equity capital

The German exchange aims to take on CME to tap the growing interest in FX as an asset class

EBS's move reflects growing hedge fund activity in the region

Like the mariners of ancient Greece lured to their deaths by the beguiling song of the Sirens, international banks increasingly appear mesmerized by the call to invest in China's state-owned banking system.

May's credit market turmoil hit the profits of all four US brokers that reported second-quarter earnings last month, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley especially. There'll be more to come in July when the universal banks, and Merrill Lynch, report. JPMorgan has already warned that its trading results are the worst for some time. But the firm has at least had the chance to offset some of its problems with gains from June's more bullish credit trading environment.

ABN Amro is handing down its underperforming US high-grade business to wholly owned

After New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer's appearance last year, whoever was guest speaker at the New York Financial Writers annual awards dinner this June was always going to have a tough act to follow. In fact, William McDonough, chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, made a very good fist of it.

At the end of June, Kenneth Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, said that Chinese investment in the US should not be hampered. "I don't think it can be a one-way street," he argued.

But competition will get tougher for wealth managers, according to a recent survey

Bankers report a material shift in confidence levels among investors

Issuers are uncertain about the implications of the EU Prospectus Directive

Citigroup's vision of the ultimate financial company, manufacturing and selling every financial product, is lost. A series of scandals betrayed the fact that the structure Sanford Weill built had reached the limits of its manageability. Charles Prince now has a new plan to put the bank back on track. Will it work?

Telecoms sector misses out on $390 million investment

Investors' willingness to accept shares in foreign-owned companies could lead to a boom in European activity

Kensington concerns:

Banks miffed at Deutsche's fees

The US economy is in a fool's paradise – Europe and Japan are by no means doomed to lag behind it. But none of these rivals can afford to abandon free trade to cope with China's massive growth

An inflexible and costly labour market is often blamed for the eurozone's poor economic performance. But in Germany at least, times are changing. In an appeal to pure free-market economics, two Germans have launched a recruitment website where jobs go to the lowest bidder.