Saudi Arabia’s banks are bracing for a period of intense retail competition by preparing to launch new products, especially for Islamic and internet banking, and developing personal and mortgage lending.

General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's head of state, talks about his country's economic programme, the Afghan Taliban and Islamic fundamentalism.

A law that was passed virtually unnoticed will come into effect this month and has prompted many strategic and financial investors to question whether any investment in Korea’s financial sector is wise.

Global capital markets rarely look gloomy at both ends of the fund-raising spectrum, as the past year's momentous events indicate. The primary debt business is robust and active whereas equities are still shaking off the hangover that followed the indulgences of the tech stock party. Jonathan Brown sketches in the background to this year's Euromoney capital-raising poll which the universal banks dominate

Euromoney's September edition had already gone to press when news broke of the horriffc terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. The sheer scale of the destruction and loss of life numbs the mind, making rational analysis almost impossible. Financial markets consist of nothing more than men and women buying and selling. In the immediate aftermath few could turn their minds to anything so mundane as dealing or stock tipping. It's likely that every reader of Euromoney will have known people who worked in the World Trade Centre and it is with those unfortunate individuals that most people's thoughts now lie.

ING’s unique approach to the provision of financial services has placed it among the pioneers.

Investors fearful that the crisis in Argentina might spill over into the largest Latin American economy, Brazil, generally draw some comfort from the fact that the country’s central bank is led by former speculator Arminio Fraga. Fraga, who took up his post just after the floating of the real in 1999, has implemented an inflation-targeting system, enhanced bank supervision, and garnered universal respect and admiration. Brazil might have been hit by Argentina, but now the country should be seen as a turnaround story, he tells Felix Salmon

Turkish inspectors have discovered that the governmental abuse of the state banks continues and has remained unpunished.

Russian bonds are looking much safer than equities, offering good growth potential while still guaranteeing favourable yields. Once again, investors have their eyes on bonds.

Société Générale paid Eu1.2 billion for 60% of Komercni Banka as it moved into the Czech Republic in June. The move was criticized as too risky. Now, it appears that it was right on target.

The IMF has begun to stress prevention of crises rather than their cure and the new US administration agrees. But that raises numerous imponderables. Should the stress of prevention be on incentives to countries to behave responsibly or on building sound international financial architecture? And if the goal is to seek out better ways of forecasting impending crisis, does the IMF have the legitimacy to release market-moving information of this sort?

The Russian population is increasingly confident about the future. The country is enjoying trade and budget surpluses. Economists, though, fret about the implications of high inflation, while growth depends heavily on continued high oil prices and a sound debt repayment strategy.

Hong Kong is facing a crisis - how to fund an increasing budget deficit at a time of almost unprecedented economic downturn.

Ben Aris spoke to Yuri Ponomarev, the chairman of Vneshtorgbank (VTB), the international trade bank of the Russian Federation, which is now Russia’s largest bank ranked by shareholders’ equity.

On August 13, the two-year versus 30-year US treasury yield curve gapped out to a seven-year high of 184 basis points. The two-year treasury was trading at its lowest ever yield in the 25 years since the two-year security was first introduced, and three-month Libor was even lower at 3.57%. Moreover, with the US economy showing no signs of recovery, short-end rates seem set to move even tighter. The extraordinary steepness of the US yield curve has provided mouthwatering swap opportunities for corporates that would not normally consider conversion of fixed-rate liabilities to floating rate. The greater than normal swap business has also put added downward pressure on swap spreads.

The swing of the political pendulum in the US has had an equal and opposite reaction in Europe. In the 1990s, under the post-cold war order of transatlantic relations, Bill Clinton's centre-left US administration promoted its own brand of caring capitalism. Inflation was banished, the world economy grew strongly and financial markets soared.

Billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra kept his job as Thailand's prime minister, but only by the skin of his teeth and as a result of a split court judgement last month. An immediate political and constitutional crisis was thereby avoided - but only at the risk of buffeting the country's fragile political system and storing up trouble for later.

Washington's battles with big budget deficits may seem like a distant memory, but a familiar refrain from those days has taken on new meaning for the IMF. "Less is more" has been a powerful, if unstated, theme running through many Fund-led packages, ever since the Mexican peso crisis of 1994-95.

Many bankers Euromoney has spoken to are fearful that anti-capitalist and anti-globalization protesters will severely disrupt this year's IMF/World Bank meetings - and some even refuse to discuss the issue on the record because they don't want to give the protesters the oxygen of publicity.

President Putin’s has pushed through a swathe of reforming laws, spearheading his drive to liberalization. But implementation will not be easy. Nor can it be assumed that the liberals will stay in the ascendancy. Business oligarchs and the conservatives are asserting themselves as Putin struggles to pick a way through conflicting interests.

There are few bigger jobs in finance than US Treasury undersecretary for international affairs. So meet John Taylor, the former academic economist who finance ministers and central bank governors from around the world will be courting for the next few years. Taking time out from the negotiations over Argentina he delivers some tough messages on official sector financing packages: they should come with fewer conditions, but those conditions should be strictly monitored and enforced, before funds are disbursed. He offers to share useful experience with Japan, expresses confidence in the European single currency project and explains to James H Smalhout why the US current account deficit is sustainable

The tango effect is being felt in the international bond and currency markets and in the halls of the central bank in Brasilia, but so far it has had relatively little effect on the average Brazilian.

The only good thing about the roads in Manila is the jeepneys. The long, brightly decorated Filipino buses-cum-taxis bring a dash of colour to the tedious traffic jams on dilapidated, pock-marked roads.

Mexico has prospered through ever-closer links to the US, which has been the main market for its booming exports. Seven years on from its own crisis, Mexico now appears strong enough to shrug off any contagion from Argentina. The downside, though, is that Mexico will now suffer if the US economy goes into a deep and prolonged downturn. Faults in its economy may yet be revealed.

The number and variety of regional and municipal issuers tapping the international markets continues to grow steadily. Central governments across the Americas, Americasand emerging markets want to devolve financial responsibility. The degree of sovereign support varies.

The Fed has dscovered the gift of the gab, and it doesn't seem to have done any harm. Not yet, anyway.

Bulgaria’s new government is preparing to enter the Eurobond markets to reduce its debt service costs. The country’s strong recovery from the banking collapse and economic setbacks of 1996 and 1997, its recent currency stability and commitment to EU convergence should win it a strong reception among investors. But concerns persist over the credibility of the government’s ambitions to balance the budget, cut taxes and increase spending all at the same time.

Years from now, the banking crisis of today will probably be seen as the beginning of a period when market dominance started to pass to foreign hands.

Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz is single-handedly staging an economic revolution in Pakistan, selling yet another military government to a sceptical international investor community.

Argentina is looking at the worst case of deflation that the world has seen since the US great depression in the 1930s, and it is hard to see where the necessary boosts in confidence and growth are going to come from to break this confidence crisis.

The largest banks in Latin America are in its largest economies, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. Consolidation has created large conglomerates through in-market mergers and acquisition of local franchises by international powerhouses. By Celina Vansetti, data from Moody’s Investors Service

Under James Wolfensohn the World Bank has beaten off influential enemies through polished public relations, but there are still widespread doubts about the effectiveness of Bank policies. Projects continue to fail and adjustment lending has in many cases been granted without proper safeguards. Bank insiders claim that programmes are increasingly effective but critics point to the weakness of Bank models for measuring success.

Most of the prize assets have been snapped up as bank privatization draws to an end in Europe’s emerging markets. Those banks that remain on offer are getting more pricey. But impending European Union accession for several countries means this is still an appealing market and is driving strategic change among both veteran players and big-spending newcomers.

The reform of Russia’s electricity sector is going faster than that of other utilities. UES chief executive Anatoly Chubais talked to Ben Aris about the proposals and the timetable

David Malpass, chief international economist at Bear Stearns, in a speech last month to the National Economists Club in Washington outlines the view that the world economy is entering a long, "saucer-shaped" slowdown. The nub of the problem is deflation, reckons Malpass. The flip side of the greenback's repeated 10% year-on-year gains is a drop in commodity prices of roughly the same amount. That's going to result in hard knocks for many economies.

RZB, Austria’s largest private banking group, has been in the race for market share in central and eastern Europe from the beginning. Now, with so many western rivals, RZB looks to new ground in a pair of Bosnian start-ups.

Russia’s stock market has ended the first half of the year as the third best performing market in the world.

Strong-arm tactics haven’t entirely disappeared from Russia’s industrial consolidation process but the most successful companies are increasingly ploughing ahead by using gentler methods.

Pakistan has gone a long way towards stabilizing the economy under its present government, greatly improving the balance-of-payments situation and increasing revenues from taxation: all policies that make multilateral aid a much more practicable proposition. From this base, the government hopes to put in place strategies that will encourage growth, with rationalization of the banking sector and privatization high on the agenda.

World Bank president James Wolfensohn responds to the many criticisms being thrown at the institution, points to some of its recent achievements and outlines a vision of how it might work in future.

A small group of western-minded business leaders have banded together to lobby for a Russia free from robber barons and fit for their children by the year 2015.

The UAE’s capital markets have been neglected by the federation’s own high-net-worth individuals while foreign investors have been excluded from many sectors. However, the rich are likely to invest more at home in the wake of market volatility elsewhere and foreigners may also be attracted by such deals as Emirates Airlines’ bond. But much remains to be done to develop local markets.

KBC demonstrates just what happens when deep pockets are used to address pressing commercial imperatives.

Ben Aris spoke to Arkard Volsky, chairman of the Russian Union for Industrialists & Entrepreneurs about the influential pressure group of top businessmen.

In an economic downturn, law firms specializing in financial business can ease the pain by establishing relations with their clients that are not strictly based on individual deals. The clients may also benefit.

It is over a year since president Vladimir Putin moved to bring unruly Russian regional governors to heel, but it is still unclear whether the system of federal districts he introduced will help or hinder foreign investors intrepid enough to venture into Russia.

When international rating agencies announced a negative outlook on India's sovereign rating in early August, the equity and bond markets barely reacted.

Russia’s vast utilities are gravely afflicted. In desperate need of investment to rebuild worn-out plant and distribution networks, they are also drained of income because of uneconomic pricing and persistent corruption. Ben Aris reports on the progress of restructuring

Equity buyers are increasingly basing investment decisions on companies’ records on corporate governance as well as on projected real shareholder returns. The challenge for investors is to measure and reward good corporate governance practice as readily as they have criticized bad corporate governance in the past. Euromoney offers its own contribution, with a new corporate governance ranking and also reproduces analyses by banks. For investors and companies, especially in emerging markets, new rules of engagement are being drawn up. Kapila Monet reports, research by Andrew Newby

Saudi Arabia has demonstrated strong growth in the midst of the falling global economy, and that growth can be attributed to more than just oil. Natural gas and tourism also have contributed to this boom, but it is unclear whether Saudi Arabia can generate enough jobs for its growing population.

Even after China has joined the World Trade Organization, there will be a grace period of five years before foreign banks can compete head-on with local banks. But that still represents an ambitious timetable for reform. There has been progress, but the sheer scale of China’s banking system, the need to adopt new accounting standards and the number of bad loans present hurdles.

Lars Thunell, president of SEB, in which Investor has a large stake, explains its strategy

This summer the euro began to strengthen, the European Central Bank pleased markets and politicians with a long-awaited quarter-point rate cut and criticism of the policy conduct of the ECB receded. It may be time for a new assessment of how the bank has been doing. Clearly it has inherited flaws from the political compromises made to set it up. Is it in such a hopeless state that mistakes will happen again, or were past errors excusable gaffes in an otherwise reasonably successful performance?

The Paris Club of official bilateral creditors is promoting the view that holders of sovereign bonds should take their share of the burdens when borrowers need rescuing from default. Jerome Booth argues that this burden-sharing dogma flies in the face of insights that can be gleaned from history and conflates what is essentially politically-motivated lending with market-driven lending. It will, he argues, inevitably damage the debtors it is ostensibly designed to help

Underperformance is still the norm in emerging markets.

The aura of calm efficiency surrounding the new Indonesian administration of president Megawati Soekarnoputri has come as a relief to most Indonesians. After nearly four years of riots, coup rumours, unpredictable policymaking and political infighting, a rest is as good as a holiday.

Russia has done little to reform a banking sector that is still littered with hundreds of thinly capitalized and barely functioning institutions. But there are some signs of improvement. A stronger economy has made it more attractive for the larger commercial banks to start lending to Russian companies. It’s a new game for them.

"CSFB is just like Laurel and Hardy," says one banker. "It's gotten itself into another fine mess." Following hard on the heels of its problems in Japan, Sweden, the UK, India and the US, it's now in trouble with the Chinese. This time it's nothing to do with the regulators, but a diplomatic faux pas, and an expensive one at that.

Banks in the UAE have been tardy about consolidation and rationalization, relying on the benefits of continuing high oil prices. Now, though, they face the challenges of money-laundering investigators and impending WTO financial sector liberalization.

Despite the dire state of the Japanese economy, yen-denominated issues have maintained their popularity, providing borrowers useful diversity and a domestic investor base hungry for yield.

Dubai prepares for the IMF/World Bank meetings in 2003 by building five-star hotels, new roads and upgrading the transport system.

Legislation is pending that should liberalize Saudi Arabia’s capital markets and attract foreign investment and returning Saudi capital. The extent of these reforms will show how far the country’s leaders intend to open up an economy that needs capital investment and job creation.

Abandoning the so-called two pillars approach could lead to solving communication or even transparency problems in the ECB’s set-up.

The Korean government wants to sell Seoul Bank to a blue-chip foreign strategic investor. But the likes of HSBC aren’t interested. So how far should the government compromise and maybe encourage a private-equity fund? The problem is that in the run-up to an election, the government is hemmed in by the favourable deal it struck with Newbridge, which was widely ridiculed by the local media.

Amid mounting concerns about a global economic slowdown, it is still country-specific political and economic factors that are propelling nations up and down the country risk rankings. There have been marked drops for such countries as Argentina, Zimbabwe, and Indonesia but no sign of fears of contagion spreading to their neighbours.

The February currency crisis has left Turkish banks bereft of capital. Disciplines imposed after the December 1999 IMF stand-by agreement mean that they are unable to replenish their reserves in the time-honoured way – by lending to the government. Underlying the sector’s particular problems – the only answer to which seems to lie in consolidation and foreign investment – is a generalized economic quagmire in which flounders a discredited political elite. There is little optimism to be found among those in the know in Turkey and the most pessimistic predict that a third crisis is just around the corner.

Author: Antony Currie

The Wallenberg family presides over some of Sweden’s most famed industrial names such as Ericsson and Saab. Its grip over the Investor AB trust seems unassailable. But is it? Martin Ebner of BZ Bank is probing their defences and questioning the dynamism of the top management. These protagonists have crossed swords before.

The majority of Arab banks enjoyed a good year in 2000 as most of the main Arab countries recorded solid rates of GDP growth, benefiting from the continued high price of oil. Reflecting this, the top 100 Arab banks saw net profit rise by 15% in 2000 on an aggregated basis. The overall return on equity rose to 14.1% in 2000 from 13.2% in 1999, and the return on assets increased to 1.3%.

If ever a finance minister was in the firing line, Shaukat Aziz is that man. The 30-year veteran of Citibank is saddled with the task of selling yet another military government in Pakistan to a sceptical international investor community.

Some Citibank alumni did not simply live on their legacy at Citi, but made their own legacies.

Former Citibanker Deogracias Vistan has taken over as CEO of Equitable PCI, and his main goal is to clean up the bank's balance sheet and its image. The bank’s relationship with Joseph Erap Estrada does not make Vistan’s task an easy one.

After two years in the job, the South African Reserve Bank’s governor Tito Mboweni has earned the respect and admiration of his peers and market players. His biggest success has been in bringing inflation under control.

Erste Bank sets its sights on large local corporates, a less coveted market for regional expansion, but one that could prove to have greater potential.

Being an investment banker in the Philippines is rarely dull. One day you might find yourself being blamed for triggering a collapse in the currency, the next winning a mandate for an unplaceable bond deal. Nerves and tempers are being frayed in the country’s financial markets by fears about collapsing exports, a weakening currency, fiscal deficits and exclusion from international capital markets. Everyone hopes that the new president can clean up the mess.

John Reed kept himself to himself in the latter part of his career at Citibank. And these days he is pretty reclusive. Colleagues say he is still haunted by the period in 1999 when, in the aftermath of Citi’s takeover by Travelers, he was eclipsed by his co-chairman, Sandy Weill.

The departure of David Salisbury from Schroders gives more ammunition to those critics who say the firm lacks direction.

Some banks are looking beyond central and eastern Europe’s emerging economies for ways to gain scale.

What do the the CEO of Standard Chartered, the finance minister of Pakistan, the central bank governor of the Philippines and the opposition leader in Liberia have in common? They all used to work at Citibank.

JPMorgan lost three senior emerging-markets bankers in one week. Those leaving are Miguel Guttierez, co-head of emerging markets credit and rate markets (with Jorge Jasson), Robert Priestley, head of the European emerging markets team, and head of origination for Latin America, Rachel Hines.