Singapore has made great strides as a private banking centre, attracting almost every bank that matters to set up shop there to service the region’s rich. But recent developments in Burma (Myanmar) suggest that the city state’s financial success has come with a string attached to it: increasing scrutiny of its morality.

BNP Paribas has hired Kai Harden, who joins from Goldman Sachs, to co-head its Germany, Austria and Switzerland FIG business alongside Menko Jaekel. He is based in London and reports to Anthony Fane, head of DCM FIG Europe. Harden spent two years at Goldman Sachs and before that worked at JPMorgan.

Deutsche Bank has appointed Marzio Keiling and Mark Graham as co-heads of the European securitized products group (SPG). Keiling and Graham will report jointly to Erik Falk and Frank Byrne, co-heads of global SPG. The two are responsible for the origination and distribution of securitization products and services in Europe. Graham was a senior member of the Morgan Stanley real estate securitization team behind the Eloc programme. At Deutsche, he previously ran the European special situations group within SPG, focusing on illiquid securitized financings and whole-business securitization. Keiling was head of institutional client coverage for Europe. They replace Jeff Stolz, who joined Goldman Sachs in mid-August.

The credit market seizure vindicated a few brave hedge fund managers who had spotted the sub-prime crash coming, positioned themselves deftly, and made huge returns from it. These managers recount the challenges of deploying funds against the long-only herd, outline expectations for worse market disruptions ahead and analyze the public policy responses that threaten the potential returns of many investors now seeking to profit from distress. Peter Lee reports.

Shared service centres or payment factories? Corporates have to choose which system works best for them. There is no one size that fits all, while good working partnerships with banks are as important as ever.

Securitization went from being the success story of the capital market to the root of all its evils in just a couple of weeks this summer. Some of those caught in the storm relate the experience to Louise Bowman, who finds out how long it will take to stop being a dirty word.

A new study confirms the substantial benefits of a depositary receipt programme.

The high quality of its mortgage assets might not be enough to save Northern Rock’s Granite master trust.

One of Latin America’s biggest challenges is financing its massive infrastructure needs, and nowhere is this more pressing than in Mexico, especially in toll road development.

Kazakhstan looks set to be the CIS region’s biggest victim of the fallout from the problems in the US sub-prime mortgage market, with the country’s banks seen as the most vulnerable in the Commonwealth of Independent States to any reduction in global liquidity. In recent weeks, the country has been hit by ratings downgrades, whipsawing bond and equity prices, and pressure on the currency. Furthermore, the track record of the banking regulators – previously regarded as the best in the region – is now beginning to look tarnished.

The credit crunch fundamentally altered the cash bond/CDS dynamic. As more and more managers are forced to turn to CDS to hedge their bond portfolios, will we ever see a return to highly liquid cash markets? Jethro Wookey reports.

The collapse of structured finance issuance has significant implications for the financing of assets such as mortgage loans but has also dramatically changed the nature of the traditional investment-grade bond business in America. Alex Chambers reports.

Kaupthing Bank and the state-owned Export-Import Bank of Korea both launched Mexican peso issues in October. The Export-Import bank issued a Ps1 billion ($92 million) 10-year bond. The Icelandic bank launched a Ps2.3 billion bond transaction on October 10 to become the first Nordic bank to do a public issue in Mexico. The deal was led by BBVA Bancomer and Lehman Brothers and aimed at diversifying the bank’s funding sources.

The NFA is seeking to up the ante in its fight against the bucket shops that tarnish the US retail FX market.

Royal Bank of Canada has launched its €15 billion covered bond programme with a jumbo issue in the European covered bond market. The deal is Canada’s first ever covered bond.

Many have struggled to beat regular equity market returns, especially after liquidity crisis, says research.

The Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchange (Case) has launched a new exchange for small and medium-sized enterprises. Case has established several new trading capabilities in the past two years, such as margin trading, online trading and short-selling. Case also plans to launch a derivatives exchange late next year. "We would like to see our derivatives market competing with other emerging markets," says Maged Shawky Sourial, chairman of Case since 2005.

If hedge funds have increased systemic risk, we need to find out by how much and whether the benefits outweigh the risks, says Andrew Lo and Amir Khandani’s paper on quants (see story on page 42). But registration is not the way forward. The authors back up proposals made by other academics that instead a monitoring board would make a good starting point. "By establishing a dedicated and experienced team of forensic accountants, lawyers, and financial engineers to monitor various aspects of systemic risk in the financial system, and by studying every financial blow-up and developing guidelines for improving our methods and models a capital markets safety board may be a more direct way to deal with the systemic risks of the hedge fund industry," concludes the paper. "A great idea," comments one manager, "but the banks will never allow it."

In March, Taiwan’s voters will go to the polls, and as ever the issue of cross-strait relations with mainland China will be key. And few groups will have more at stake than Taiwan’s banking sector.

The US dollar’s long-term weakness looks set to persist as the currency seems to fall to a fresh historical low against the euro on a weekly basis. The latest G7 meeting, held over the weekend of October 20-21, did nothing to provide any support. In the immediate aftermath of the meeting, the dollar fell to 1.4349 against the euro before bouncing. The reasons for the recovery, at this stage, are not clear.

If you cast doubt on the future of the Dubai real estate market, those with stakes invariably tell you that they have heard it all before. "Every year they tell me something will go wrong, and every year I see Dubai growing stronger," Adel Al-Shirawi, CFO of Dubai home financier Tamweel, told Euromoney earlier this year.

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The liquidity crunch of August and September highlighted the intricate relationship between prime brokers and their hedge fund clients. Some managers had their livelihoods threatened by increased margin requirements, while asset valuations were brought into question. Do the two sides of the relationship know each other at all? Helen Avery reports.

Monte Kristo Capital of the UK is the latest foreign entrant to the burgeoning Georgian banking market, having bought a 70% stake in Tetri Bank for an undisclosed sum. Following the deal, Tetri Bank, the country’s 16th biggest bank by assets, will be renamed First British Bank. Monte Kristo’s move is the latest in a series of acquisitions by foreign banking groups in recent months. France’s Société Générale, Russia’s VTB and Ukraine’s Privatbank have all bought banks in the Caucasian republic.

What was hailed as a great success for the credit derivatives market, the tackling of the unconfirmed transaction backlog, has turned out to be far from a mission accomplished.

According to Olivier LeMarois, CEO of Riskdata, equity market neutral funds’ reliance on one risk model for both trading and risk management exacerbated their losses in the summer.

A growing number of superannuation funds in Australia are turning away from funds of hedge funds and external advisers to set up hedge fund manager selection capabilities in house.

Interest in emerging market high-yield debt is at an all-time high.

Evolvence Capital, a Dubai alternative investment company, is on track to raise $150 million for what it claims is the region’s first hedge fund when it closes to investment next month.

Economic growth, stability, market reform and liberalization have led to a Latin American investors into Chile, Colombia and Peru. Leticia Lozano reports.