Search results for

As a wave of consolidation sweeps much larger banking markets in Europe, Portugal's banks are eyeing up potential acquisitions and merger partners. Will limited alliances provide the scope the banks need to compete on the wider European stage? Or are they natural targets for acquisitive banks in Spain and elsewhere? Margaret Popper reports.

Developing countries don't need central banks, argues Steve Hanke. They may not even need their own currencies. Argentina should lead the way by unilaterally adopting the dollar.

While Europe's states integrate, its regions come to the fore as economic actors. None is more determined to make itself noticed than the Basque Country, historically one of Europe's leading financial and industrial centres. It's part of a growing club of regions who tap international capital markets, looking for cheap funds and self-promotion. It's also a standard-bearer for the argument that euroland regions can be better credits than states. Marcus Walker reports.

Bankers might be forgiven for thinking that when lawyers get their teeth into a juicy case they make it run and run. But, warns Christopher Stoakes, we have still to hear the last of the swaps cases

Euromoney received replies from 32 economists at leading financial and economic institutions. They gave each country's economic performance for 1999 and 2000 a score out of 100. The world's fastest-growing, best-performing economy in an ideal year would score 100; the worst economy in a disastrous year would score zero. Respondents were asked to consider economic growth, monetary stability, current-account balance, budget balance, unemployment and structural imbalances. Economists also gave GNP growth forecasts for 1999 and 2000. Countries which received no votes are excluded from this table.

Euroland Municipal Bonds: New city states

Portuguese Banking: Carving out a new role

Bankers who risk billions every day at work often turn out to be adrenaline addicts in their spare time. Guy Hands, the UK's highest-paid financier and enigmatic leader of Nomura's principal finance group is one such. He has just pumped a sizeable chunk of his £40 million-a-year package into Rockingham motor-racing track in Northamptonshire, the first purpose-built oval track to open in the UK since 1907.

Euroland Municipal Bonds: New city states

One does not mess with the head of the Botín clan, Spain's most powerful banking dynasty, even if you happen to be the boss's daughter.

Michael Hughes spent 16 years in the trading rooms of the City. He worked for Samuel Montagu, Kidder Peabody and Amro Bank. Made redundant some 10 years ago he now runs a holiday business on the Pembrokeshire coast.

For a country crippled by bloody civil war, Sri Lanka has seen dramatic progress in privatization over the last three years. Even as bombs blew up the heart of Colombo's business district in October 1997 - an area housing the central bank, the Colombo stock exchange, the Securities Exchange Commission and the Bank of Ceylon - the country earned record revenues from privatization. The sale of the country's telecom monopoly, its second-largest development bank, half a dozen small state companies and several plantation companies, raised SLR22.5 billion ($336 million) in 1997, contributing 11.5% of total government revenue. The budget deficit for 1997 fell to 7.9% from 9.4% in the previous year, no mean achievement for a country that spends around 5% of its GDP on security.