They started by trying to update the crude minimum capital requirements for international banking established in 1988. But the Basel Committee have been seduced by a new idea: let banks regulate themselves and get the market to police the banking system. Can we rely on the models banks use to calculate their capital? And do the regulators really understand what the banks are up to?

The IMF is making changes to pacify the Bush administration after new US treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, sounded a note of scepticism about the role of supranational organizations in the capital markets. O'Neill stated on February 15 that he attaches particular priority to a "transparent and accountable" IMF. O'Neill sees the IMF's role as one of a watchdog in the markets, alerting governments to growing problems before they fully develop.

The Portuguese bond market is caught in a pincer grip. More liquidity is required to attract foreign investors but that can only be achieved if the trend for domestic investors to move to other euro markets is at least partly reversed. Some success in improving the situation has been achieved but there is much still to be done.

Brazil's Novo Mercado is Bovespa’s latest attempt to bring the country's Brazilian equity markets up to western standards of transparency, liquidity and governance. It is modelled on Germany’s Neuer Markt, but so far hasn’t had any listings.

Despite investor demands for tighter dot com management controls, B2B and B2C companies still have little awareness of their exposure to legal risk By Nigel Page

One of the great gainers from falling global interest rates will be emerging market financial assets - though not everywhere. I've just visited one emerging market that should outperform this year: Brazil.

For the first time in almost a decade Latin America’s faithful companion – a strong US economy – will be absent this year. It’s an eventuality that the finance ministers and central bank governors of Latin America have been worrying about for years. They have fretted over how their economies will respond to reduced demand from American importers and how their finances might be disrupted by collapsing confidence and increased risk-aversion in the US. Yet with America’s astonishing growth finally appearing to falter, private-sector capital has flowed abundantly since the start of 2001. Perhaps investors into the region are just taking a short-term view on US interest rates. Political risks remain the medium-term worry.

Berlin has not quite finished growing together, though it's well on the way to being rebuilt, with the near-completion of the Potsdamer Platz project.

The news coming out of Japan has for a long time been wholly discouraging. Its economy has been on the operating table for the best part of 10 years. The government, unsure, unable or unwilling to make use of the scalpel, resorts to placing band-aids over gaping wounds. The cauterizing effect of injecting trillions of yen into the ailing system is also wearing off. Intermittent signs of recovery often prove no more than false dawns. And the country is running out of its self-prescribed medicine. But there are going to be some winners – quite possibly the foreign investment banks. As companies take it on themselves to restructure, or are forced to, those familiar vultures are circling overhead.

In the past Euromoney’s country risk ratings have been reliable lead indicators of dips and surges in the world’s economic cycle. Six months ago the global economy looked in fine fettle, underpinned by favourable commodity prices and strong growth in developed countries. Financial markets are fearful this is about to change. Analysts’ forecasts for economic performance are noticeably lower than in September’s survey. But it’s not all doom and gloom. Research by Damon Ivanics and Andrew Newby

Participants in Chunghwa Telecom's on-off American depositary receipt (ADR) issue are playing a game of bluff and double bluff as they amass support for a dignified climbdown on the deal's pricing stalemate.

After trying to be in four places at once, Morgan Stanley’s chief investment officer, Joseph McAlinden, is looking forward to moving to a permanent base, on the Avenue of the Americas.

Almost four years after its merger with Dean Witter, Morgan Stanley's new-look asset management division is finally taking shape under Mitchell Merin. Bringing the cultures of disparate investment houses under one roof has involved asking headstrong individuals to embrace a team ethic. The new beast may have the potential to achieve its aim of being the world's number one fund manager in all asset classes. Even Europe and Asia, which have so far resisted its advances, could yet succumb. However careful jockeyship will be required to keep star managers happy and the charge on course. Later this year the Morgan Stanley name will oust Dean Witter yet it is Dean Witter alumni who hold the key positions, both in the investment division and in the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter group at large where internal divisions have started to surface. Merin and his team talk exclusively to Julian Marshall

Never bet against the Fed. That's the advice many in the US are giving at the moment. It forms part of their core argument that the US cannot be heading into recession, because the Federal Reserve, and especially its chairman, Alan Greenspan, is on the case.

Portugal’s economy is in great shape, unemployment is low by European standards and government borrowing requirements are steadily falling. That is the good news. Less auspicious is the fact that Portugal is saddled with structural imbalances and competitiveness vis-à-vis other economies with relatively low labour costs is steadily deteriorating.

On January 30, UK water regulator Philip Fletcher finally gave the go-ahead to Glas Cymru's purchase of the assets of Welsh Water, in exchange for assuming £1.8 billion of the debt of Welsh Water's owner, utilities group Hyder. Glas Cymru - "the people's company" is to have what amounts to mutual status and become fully debt financed. Technically, it will be owned by nobody but guaranteed by 200 members - ranging from Welsh dignitaries to hospitals - whose individual personal liability will be capped at £1.

All the online bond trading platforms that are likely to emerge have already been announced. That already seems to be too many. One merger has already taken place and others will probably follow soon.

David Clementi, deputy governor at the Bank of England, says the use of credit derivatives in securitization poses a threat to capital market stability.

Argentina is now number eight in a quarter-trillion dollar stream of rescue packages to bolster the credit of threatened emerging economies. Mexico was the first in 1995, recipient of what was supposed to be a one-time $50 billion ransom for world stability. But that failed to factor in the next round of play. Instead, crises have impacted more often and with greater force and will continue to do so as past example teaches the markets that speculation is protected by a G7 guarantee. Adam Lerrick proposes that the private sector should provide the first line of defence with standby financing subsidized by the IMF as a global public good

The message is clear - China rules, OK?

Accounting for some 90% of dealer-to-customer trading in US government securities, TradeWeb is the most successful internet bond dealership yet established.

It's easily done - a typing error slips through unobserved on your computer as you tap frantically on your keyboard. But such errors can cost thousands, even millions of dollars, if you're a bond trader. And traders say the risks of expensive and embarrassing mistakes occurring are made even greater by the lack of standardization among electronic trading platforms.

France Telecom has set a troubling precedent for all those telecom companies that were desperately hoping to turn to the equity markets to raise funding and reduce their leverage.

When the new Basel proposals come into force in 2004, the effects will be felt throughout the financial system. Corporate and sovereign borrowers should see their borrowing costs increase or decrease as a result of the change in bank asset weightings.

One of the biggest talking points in the Basel accord is the proposed charge for operational risk. But devising a system for monitoring and measuring operational risk that is subject to external review presents quite a challenge.

Prescient, a pioneer of direct debt issuance over the internet, intends to expand into other products in the coming months, with the next target being certificates of deposits in the US.

The last round of deal-making in Portugal’s banking sector has now come to a halt. Another round of consolidation may follow, as the newly-merged banks continue to eye each other.

Morgan Stanley is making its latest attempt to woo UK institutions with the launch of its new multi-asset-class product.

London hosted the first worldwide conference of central counterparties last month to discuss developing a system of seamless global clearing.

The jaws of a trap are closing on Europe’s telecom companies. Credit rating agencies and debt providers will punish them unless they reduce the huge debts they took on to build in new markets. The telecom companies have promised to do this by floating subsidiaries and selling assets. But the very equity investors that encouraged them to leverage up and go for growth won’t buy these now. The banks won’t lend either and more downgrades are likely. The scales have fallen from debt and equity investors’ eyes. Where once stood, solid, dependable, utility-like incumbents, they now see risky, new-economy companies that have bet heavily on unproven technology and have limited access to the funding needed to make it pay. The telecom companies may have to take drastic action in order to survive.