Foreign exchange has arguably held up better than any other financial market in the fallout from the sub-prime crisis. Will its robustness result in it being taken more seriously as both a business and as an asset class? And which banks have fared best in Euromoney’s benchmark industry poll?

ING has released a report on the economic and market implications of US obesity. Entitled The fat of the land, the report looks at possible effects on the US economy of the growing numbers of obese people. In 1980, some 15% of Americans were classified as obese, under the (admittedly questionable) BMI method. By 2004, that figure had risen to about 33%.

While elsewhere the mortgage market is drying up and securitization is quiescent, the biggest economy in the Gulf is trying to expand both. The finishing touches are being applied to laws on the Saudi mortgage market but it’s uncertain they will provide enough flow to meet demand for funding. Dominic O’Neill reports from Riyadh.

Ukraine’s financial institutions are thriving despite renewed political upheaval. A surge in M&A and IPO activity could be the next stage.

Sepa came into being in January but there is still much work to be done before the full benefits come through for banks and corporate customers. What are the main threats or opportunities of the developments? What obstacles have to be overcome? Euromoney’s debate panel wrestles with the key issues.

Osman Semerci, Merrill Lynch’s former global head of fixed income, currencies and commodities, and co-president of the EMEA global markets and investment banking business, has joined $1.7 billion alternatives group Duet as its chief executive. Duet Group, which started in 2002 with just $10 million in a single fund, now has 14 funds, and is looking to further expand its range of strategies, in addition to growing its private equity business.

The US secondary market in life insurance is being extended to sellers who can ill afford to relinquish their policies.

Kazakhstan’s banks have built up onerous debt repayments after a splurge of Eurobond issuance. Are they facing a liquidity crunch?

The crunch has precipitated a world where good credits can turn bad overnight. Research teams must adapt to the new circumstances while clients increasingly have their own expertise. Jethro Wookey reports.

Mongolia’s most profitable bank is considering accessing the capital markets later this year, according to its chief executive, Peter Morrow.

Just as banks in Russia were beginning to resemble their peers outside the country, engaging in conventional retail and corporate banking, the western financial market crisis hit. Reduced availability of long-term funding from abroad highlights the shortage of such a market in Russia and reveals a systemic vulnerability. Will this help state-owned banks, which had previously been losing market share, turn the tables on their privately owned rivals?

Conifer Securities, which provides back- and middle-office solutions to hedge funds, family offices and endowments, has bought Morgan Stanley’s outsourced trading business. The platform provides independent trade execution in equities, options and ETFs to Morgan Stanley’s prime brokerage hedge fund clients. Conifer has also recently hired UBS’s former head of prime brokerage for the Americas, Dick Del Bello, as a senior partner.

Bad infrastructure, a weak economy and vulnerable financial assets – but bankers in South Africa remain confident.

A reduction in foreign capital flows means that many banks in eastern Europe are indirect victims of the credit crunch.

Tradeweb has unveiled an electronic market for deposits. The platform’s management say that Tradeweb Deposit will support the placement of new and maturing deposits in euro, sterling, dollar, Swiss franc and yen. The timing of this launch comes just as the focus on the money markets has sharpened as discrepancies between the reported fixing of the interbank offered rate and the real level of bank funding have emerged. The new offering has been running on beta since January and 1,500 placements had already been conducted as of April 22. Tradeweb’s belief that electronic trading will help price transparency in the market will no doubt be challenged by the leading brokers. But the benefits of e-finance around processing are less disputed.

The Eurasian Development Bank, which was founded in 2006 to finance infrastructure projects in Russia and Kazakhstan, is to expand its remit to include investments in financial institutions, according to its chairman.

The crisis suggests that privately owned banks are not self-evidently better managed nor more effective at allocating capital than state-owned ones.

Liquidity remains the primary challenge in the present environment, meaning that few credit managers have ventured beyond the relatively liquid credit derivative indices. Managers including BlueCrest, Cairn Capital, CQS and Pimco are all seeking to take advantage of the unique opportunities the dislocation in the credit market has created, say market participants.

Figures released by Isda during April show that the notional amount of credit default swaps outstanding during 2007 grew by 37% from the first half of the year to the second half. After the first six months of 2007 – before problems in the US sub-prime mortgage market tipped the credit markets into turmoil – there were $45.5 trillion of CDS outstanding but by the end of the year there were $62.2 billion. CDS notional growth for the whole year was a full 81%. The figures are a stark illustration of the extent to which CDS were embraced as a means of hedging credit risk when the markets turned.

Competition between trading venues is leading to soaring trading volumes in Europe. Brokers are reaping the benefits and incumbent exchanges have yet to feel any pain, despite the success of new competitors.

It is too early to call the end of the credit crunch but evidence that the crisis is not worsening, if not starting to ease, was in abundance last month. If March marked the lowest point in the financial crisis, the first half of April gave ample reasons to believe that sentiment is improving – at least in the short term.

Barclays Capital has poached Adrian McGowan from Deutsche Bank, where he was head of FX complex risk, to head its FX business in Asia. McGowan will be based in Singapore and report to Ivan Ritossa, the bank’s head of global markets – trading, Asia Pacific, and global head of FX and prime services.

Standard Chartered Bank has made three senior appointments of former Lehman Brothers staff to boost its financial markets management team. Remy Klammers becomes the bank’s new global head of fixed-income trading with responsibility for FX, rates, credit and structured products trading. Klammers reports to Lenny Feder, the bank’s group head of financial markets. Klammers was previously managing director of structured products Asia at Lehman. He is being joined by Alexis Suzat, who has been appointed as global head of structured products trading, and Marten Agren, who joins as global head of modelling and analytics group, financial markets.

UniCredit Markets and Investment Banking has hired Xavier Alexandre as its head of e-commerce and electronic trading for FICC. The bank has yet to finalize the reporting lines for this new position. Alexandre will be based in London.

Retail FX provider Oanda is building up its presence in Asia following the recent appointment of K Duker as its managing director for Asia Pacific. The company has hired Maxine Loh, formerly a marketing director at UBS; Zena Tong, formerly a senior sales executive at Saxo Bank; and Tracey Tan, who was a senior customer service executive at Bloomberg, to work out of its Singapore office.

The Bank of England levelled the playing field for UK financial institutions last month when it followed the lead of the Federal Reserve and provided a facility for domestic banks and building societies to refinance mortgage-backed bonds for government bonds. Continental European banks have long been able to use the European Central Bank’s repo facility for their mortgage-backed securities. Until the European securitization market shut down, UK banks were by far its biggest users – accounting for between 40% and 50% of annual issuance over the past three years alone. The Bank of England has carefully constructed its programme to ensure that banks retain all credit risk.

The world is starting to resemble a spinning top: one week the markets soar, the next they sink. Even mighty masters of the universe are confused: hedge funds and banks had a dire month in March. And could there be a mightier master than Hank Paulson, the present US Treasury secretary and former Goldman Sachs chief executive?

"Who is this?"

BNP Paribas is presenting MillionTreesNYC in New York, a citywide, public-private scheme with the goal of planting and caring for a million trees across New York’s five boroughs over the next 10 years. Introduced as one of mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 127 PlaNYC initiatives to create a healthier, sustainable city, MillionTreesNYC will increase the city’s tree-count by 20%.

The rise of alternative beta strategies seems inevitable as investors chase greater levels of diversification in their portfolios. What are the secrets of alternative beta’s success and what obstacles can still impede its progress?