Once branded the internet dullard, Merrill Lynch is on the offensive. More than a decade after the brokerage firm bought a bank in Utah, it’s launching a nationwide retail banking operation, based on the internet, and paying money-market rates on insured deposits. That, and its plans for a banking and investment-services joint-venture with HSBC, may take its head off the merger block. Antony Currie reports

Deutsche Bank has the biggest market share in Europe, and nearly took Dresdner Bank’s slice too. But the frontier of the custody market is a moving target, and so is the associated risk.