Third regional development bank will have an initial $10 billion capital.

Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, has an important decision to make in the coming weeks: whether social spending should take precedence over debt repayments.

The current market is testing relations between managers and investors to the full, says Neil Wilson.

Armins Rusis is joining Markit’s executive team from Morgan Stanley as vice-president and global co-head of fixed income, alongside a founding partner at Markit, Kevin Gould. Rusis worked at Morgan Stanley for 17 years and was latterly head of US credit trading and global head of securitized and structured credit trading. Prior to that he worked in Europe, until May where he was head of credit trading. He was replaced by Patrick Lynch.

Like other global investment banks that are rushing to send their best talent to the Gulf, UBS is seeking to take advantage of the opportunities there.

The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, struck a new deal with countries in the Caribbean during the PetroCaribe summit last month. In order to adjust prices in line with rising oil prices, Chávez has proposed that member countries pay 40% of the cost of oil purchased from Venezuela. The rest will be paid over 25 years with 1% interest charged. If the price of oil rises above $200 a barrel, the members will pay only 30% within 90 days and the rest under new long-term conditions. Under a 2005 agreement, Venezuela provides countries in the Caribbean basin with oil at a preferential rate in order to "help the weakest countries".

Do you find aspects of the credit crunch confusing? Fear not, all will be explained by US law firm Patton Boggs. In a recent presentation in London hosted by the European Securitization Forum, US attorney Talcott J Franklin from the Washington DC-based law firm was charged with explaining the implications for European market participants of the explosion in US sub-prime litigation.

At a difficult time for the global asset management industry, the GCC countries are increasingly attractive markets. The region’s oil and gas fuelled wealth and increasing investment sophistication offer huge opportunities. Regional financial centres equipped with world-class regulation and facilities provide the right environments for international firms to establish local operations, while the Shariah-compliant investment market is growing in popularity and diversity. Stuart Pearce, CEO of Qatar Financial Centre Authority, introduces this report.

Raiffeisen International, the central and eastern European banking arm of Austria’s RZB Group, has announced plans to establish a greenfield operation in Kazakhstan.

It’s not often you overhear comments about commercial banks on the upper deck of the number 26 bus heading for the London borough of Hackney. Situated on the City of London’s doorstep, Hackney is known for trendy pubs as well as street gangs, drug dealing and general villainy. Banter on the number 26 includes, but is not limited to, sincere discussions on the merits of mobile phone models, kebabs, gambling and stern child-rearing.

The global equity bear market and credit crunch have slowed Latin American growth but the rise of the region’s wealthy is still spectacular. One effect of disruption in developed markets is a flight to perceived quality in wealth management – to domestic providers rather than those abroad. Jason Mitchell reports.

Banorte, the biggest locally owned bank in Mexico, plans to establish a new venture capital unit that will be spun off from its distressed assets business, Solida, according to the bank’s chief executive.

G8 ECM The number of ECM transactions from issuers in the G8 countries in the year to date has fallen 42% to 941 deals compared with the same period in 2007. The total volume of equity raised, however, fell by just 9%. Russia has experienced the sharpest decline in volume, with $3.5 billion raised via 12 deals and 1% market share, down from 9% in the 2007 period. US issuers, by contrast, have raised $143.7 billion via 269 deals so far this year, compared with $134.8bln via 496 deals in the 2007 period.

Luis Valdivieso was named as the new finance minister in Peru last month. After nearly two years as finance minister, Luis Carranza stepped down from office. The move was not a surprise and Valdivieso is expected to maintain the same conservative approach to fiscal and debt management. Many applaud Carranza’s austere fiscal policies and credit him with moving Peru towards investment-grade status. On the day of Carranza’s resignation, Standard & Poor’s awarded Peru an investment-grade rating, the second rating agency to do so after Fitch in April.

When the US SEC announced in July that it would impose a 30-day ban on illegal naked shorting in 19 stocks, some hedge funds were up in arms.

US fixed-income trading volume generated by hedge funds declined to 20% over 2007-08 from 29% in 2006-07 according to Greenwich Associates. In distressed debt, however, hedge funds account for 95% of US trading volume. Lehman Brothers ranked as top dealer to hedge funds in the survey despite decreases in hedge fund trading share.

After years of benefiting from the strong economic performance of the Baltic states, Sweden’s Swedbank is now seeing the downside of its exposure to the region in the wake of the recent sharp slowdown in growth.

The precise responsibility of parties such as accountants and administrators in the event of hedge fund portfolio valuation discrepancies has been of growing concern among service providers.

James Crosby, former head of HBOS, delivered his interim report on the state of mortgage finance in the UK to the government on July 29. But it does not make for good holiday reading. Despite outlining the extent to which lenders have completely withdrawn from the market and the effect that the shortage of mortgage finance is having on the housing market, Crosby emphasizes that his final recommendation might well be to do nothing. "I should stress that I may yet recommend that the government should not intervene in the market, on the grounds that such intervention would create more problems than it would solve," he says.

The effects of the credit crunch have spread across all areas of finance, affecting even the world’s most liquid market: swaps in euros. People still want to do business, but banks need to reorder their balance sheets and regain confidence. And that could take a long time.

Moscow-headquartered investment bank Renaissance Capital has teamed up with France’s BNP Paribas to offer investors a diversified form of structured equity exposure to the Russian market.

Dealers report that liquidity in the variance swaps market held up well amid recent equity market turbulence. Equity volatility might finally have matured to the point where it is an asset class in its own right. John Ferry reports.

New entrant aims for a big splash in dark pools but Nasdaq OMX and Bats are close behind, and Baikal promises intelligent order matching.

Cypriot finance minister Charilaos Stavrakis wants to cement his country’s role as a centre of capitalism.

Austria’s Erste Bank has bought a 9.8% stake in Bank Center-Invest for an undisclosed sum. Bank Center-Invest is a leading bank in southern Russia, which is one of the most economically diversified regions with limited reliance on the oil and gas industry and particular strength in agriculture. Founded in 1992, Bank Center-Invest is headquartered in Rostov-on-Don, employs about 2,000 staff and has 110 branches, the second largest network in southern Russia. Other major shareholders in the bank include the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (27.5%) and German development agency DEG (22.5%).

Troika Dialog, Russia’s oldest investment bank, has announced appointments to strengthen its market position in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Abu Dhabi state-owned investment fund Mubadala has agreed to set up an $8 billion joint venture with General Electric. It will "focus exclusively on investment opportunities generated through GE Capital’s existing origination and servicing capacity, with targeted assets of $40 billion," they said in a joint statement. Mubadala will also become one of the 10 biggest stakeholders in GE by buying shares in the open market.

Alliance & Leicester is the latest rabbit that Emilio Botín has pulled out of his hat as Santander continues its inexorable rise. Botín has now cemented his reputation for being a dealmaker as well as one of the most talented retail bankers in history. What else does he have up his sleeve? Clive Horwood reports.

One might be forgiven for doubting that an invitation to a pension fund conference could bring light relief from the doom and gloom of the financial markets. But a US fire and police pension fund conference being held in September might prove an exception. The California forum is called Guns ’n’ Hoses. If that isn’t reason enough to go, the "beer round tables" might be the clincher.

Bernardo Parnes has been named as the new chief country officer for Deutsche Bank Brazil. Parnes has more than 23 years’ banking experience. Most recently he was chief executive of Banco Bradesco’s BBI unit. Before that, he spent 14 years at Merrill Lynch. "Brazil is a key growth market for Deutsche Bank and an important part of our emerging markets business," says Dalinc Ariburnu, global head of emerging markets at the German bank.