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Euro-gigantism

The taming of Creditanstalt

Aad Jacobs, head of ING, enjoys a ritual on his journey to the bank's headquarters in Amsterdam each morning. He reads the paper, starting with the sports pages then turns to the business pages to see which bank ING is supposed to be buying that day. Some of the rumours, he says, leave him dumbfounded. But they continue to crop up for a good reason. ING has often expressed its wish to find a second home in Europe outside the Netherlands. Its executives are convinced that the single currency will lead to a single European market in banking services and are keen to position themselves accordingly and not fall into the trap of being over-dependent on a Netherlands market which itself may be attacked by new foreign competitors.

Issuer: investment banks

"I went into my boss's office to ask if I could have a new computer. He said 'no and, by the way, you've been made redundant'." This was the rather typical experience of a junior equity analyst at Jardine Fleming in the new Hong Kong.

Weak and unreliable may be their image ­ but the best emerging-market banks are among the most robust in the world. Faced with hyperinflation, political instability and crippling credit crunches, they need to be tough to survive. Along the way they have turned into centres of excellence. Euromoney picked banks from widely differing regions to illustrate this winning streak. They are Brazil's Itau, Poland's Handlowy, Taiwan's Shanghai & Commercial Savings Bank, the UAE's Mashreq, South Africa's Investec and Ghana's Social Security Bank.

It was fun while it lasted but National Bank of Poland's unique approach to monetary control has been knocked on the head. Following this year's introduction of a new banking law, the central bank, headed by tough-minded Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, will no longer be able to take retail deposits.

The virtual roundtable

Not a good start to the year for investment banks in eastern Europe. The advisory role for the $1 billion sell-off of most of Bulgaria's petrochemicals industry was up for grabs.

In a time of fierce competition partly prompted by technological change, commercial banks are struggling hard to make decent margins from traditional business. Diversification into investment banking and derivatives trading has led to as many failures as successes. Suzanne Miller reports on alternative views on how the banks might turn an honest penny.

It's boom time in Europe's private-equity business. But what if your client is so far behind the times that the term leveraged buy-out leaves a blank look on his face and he thinks high-yield bonds are a reference to 007's success rate with the ladies?

France has long maintained a proprietorial attitude towards its national treasures, including both financial institutions and the French language. But now, though the Académie Française rejects the use of such imported terms, corporate governance and shareholder value are becoming common currency. Some banks are even putting the ideas into practice. Tess Read reports.