Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez may have worried democrats with his moves to curb congressional powers but for debt underwriters and investors it promises to be good news. The reforms have made it easier for Venezuela to issue and the country is set to join other emerging-market sovereigns returning to the international capital markets this year.

Thirty years ago, US withholding-tax regulations kick-started the Eurodollar market which Euromoney was founded to report on. And today, withholding-tax regulation is again a hot topic in the international bond markets. Although the European Central Bank (ECB) has refused to comment publicly on the recent furore over savings tax harmonization, saying it is purely a matter for the European Commission, it is understood that senior ECB figures are in favour of harmonizing withholding taxes throughout Europe. This would involve the introduction of a withholding tax to be enforced in London. The ECB's motivation to support such regulation could be said to be the same as that behind its determination to restrict the access of UK institutions to the European cross-border payment system, Target. The bank is believed to be extremely uncomfortable with the idea of having the principal money market for its new currency located outside the eurozone, fearing that this would compromise the ability of the ECB to conduct monetary policy.

An extensive audit of 18 Russian commercial banks shows that many bigger ones are - by western standards - clinically dead. International lenders have lost patience. They want to push Russia's central bank and government into a major overhaul of the sector. But they lack the leverage to enforce it. And the central bank lacks the will. John van Schaik reports.

Banking in Indonesia has a split personality. In the retail sector foreign banks are introducing state-of-the-art services and buying up bargains among local banks to expand their networks. Local commercial banks are in a much gloomier situation. The costs of recapitalization are rising, influential creditors are resisting attempts to restructure and the bankruptcy court has proved ineffective. Maggie Ford reports

For international equity investors these days, working without an array of technological equipment is inconceivable. When Art Lerner began actively to invest in 1969, though, his main tool was the telephone. Even then it could be frustrating. "Back when I started, the companies we visited were usually shareholder unfriendly. There was very little information or research material available - some annual reports didn't even have an English version. You could ring up a company in, say, the Netherlands and have the CFO say to you: 'What do you care for? We run the company, we make money, and that's that.' Of course, they were salaried staff, and had no incentive to improve the share price."