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Unless Japan gets more involved in international capital markets, perhaps through a sovereign wealth fund, it is likely to become increasingly irrelevant in Asian finance.

It’s pitiful trying to blame short sellers for the woes of the financial system.

Are banks biting the hand that feeds them? Perhaps, but what choice do they have?

If there’s another Bear Stearns or Northern Rock-style blow-up, will any other bank be willing or able to pick up the pieces?

Local-currency debt markets in emerging economies are beginning to suffer from the credit crisis and broader global slowdown.

The highly respected Gavin Wells has left Citi after a 14-year stint at the bank. Wells originally joined as part of the bank’s experiment of recruiting former British army officers; he successfully marched through the ranks to ultimately head the bank’s e-commerce trading force. Following Wells’s decision to stand down, Citi has decided to use its existing forces and deploy them in more distinctly divided specialist areas.

Cross-border partnerships are tricky at the best of times. Each side tends to be wary of the other. Often cultural differences come to the fore. And then there’s the internal politics. So the failure of Barclays and Absa, the South African bank in which Barclays holds a 60% stake, to reach agreement on the sale of the UK bank’s other African businesses will only reinforce the impression that the relationship is tense.

MTN debate: Coping with the crunch in private

Insurance and capital markets: convergence or collision course?

Shinsei Bank is to sell the headquarters building it inherited from its previous incarnation, Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan, in order to avoid booking a net loss for a second consecutive fiscal year. The ¥118 billion ($1.18 billion) sale is to a real estate fund managed by Morgan Stanley, and will help to offset the total of ¥32.5 billion of sub-prime related losses announced by the bank so far. The bank says it will rent the space for the next three years while it searches for a more cost-efficient base. This continues a recent trend of banks selling their Tokyo headquarters, with Resona announcing on March 11 that it is seeking a buyer for its Otemachi base. Meanwhile market participants wonder what Morgan Stanley knows about Tokyo property that they don’t: in addition to its participation in the Shinsei deal, the US bank bought Citi’s Shinagawa HQ in February for just over $1 billion.

Abu Dhabi wants to be a global capital city: a pleasant hub for industry and high-class tourism. To attain that goal, it is looking for outside investment. But despite a stated desire for more independent business, the ruling family is still omnipresent.

Bankers at HSBC’s Canary Wharf headquarters have issued a damning verdict on their own staff canteen by adding a review of it to the popular London restaurant guide London Eating, giving it an overall score of just 2.5/10.