International regulators are stepping up their oversight of the insurance industry for a multitude of reasons. The fear that life insurers are taking increasingly risky bets with long-term retail savings is high on the list. And so is the concern that the increasing convergence and risk transfer between the insurance and banking sectors may be creating unseen - and unforeseen - risks.

The departure of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria's co-chairman Emilio Ybarra was half expected. But the resignation of CEO and vice-chairman Pedro Luis Uriarte, announced on the same day, shocked the market.

E-Finance

Operational risk is not new – it’s a concept that banks have been struggling with for years with varying degrees of success. But setting aside capital against the risk of loss from human error, systems failure, or fraud is new, and of growing concern to the industry. With the Basle Accord’s capital requirements coming into effect in January 2005, banks and other financial institutions are having to face operational risk issues with a new sense of urgency. In the following roundtable discussion, euromoney.com brought together a number of professionals with different operational risk challenges to discuss the questions they face and the business implications of the Basle Accord. IBM’s Keith Saxton moderated

Oilmen reckon great discoveries are never easy or geographically convenient. The Kashagan oil field offshore Atyrau in the Kazakh waters of the Caspian, arguably the most important find since World War II, certainly fits that bill.

Financial Security

Barclays - The Business of Banking 1690-1996 may not be everyone's idea of a page-turner. On the surface it looks as if it might appeal to the select few for whom interim company reports are favoured leisure reading.

Latin America

There may only be two surviving Beatles, following the death of George Harrison, but their influence continues to stretch throughout the world, even into financial services.

For years, overbanked Austria has been a byword for murderous competition and razor-thin margins. Now there are indications that it is becoming a more benign environment for bankers. Austrian banks are belatedly focusing on the business of making money, both at home and through energetic expansion in the central and eastern European region.

The economy is booming, but Russia’s stellar growth rates of the past three years are already starting to slow. The impact of the cheap rouble and high international oil prices are beginning to wear off. President Putin must embark on painstaking structural reforms or the boom could peter out. But that means taking on powerful entrenched interests.

President, Tokyo Mitsubishi Securities

The IPO of Dentsu, the world's fourth-largest advertising company, was supposed to mark UBS Warburg (Japan)'s entrance as a serious name in underwriting in the Japanese market.