The credit market in Eurobonds is becoming deep and varied. For the first time, corporates - including lower-rated borrowers - are driving the market. Securitization and hybrid debt are taking off as well. But which firms are best placed to sell these products to European investors? Marcus Walker reports.

Lebanese banks have lived well by investing in high-yielding treasury bonds. But with government debt issuance and interest rates set to fall, banks are looking for new ways to make money. Charles Olivier reports

This is a brief and highly selective history of the international financial markets over the past 30 years. Who were the heroes, who were the villains and who made a difference? It's the story of hopeful financial centres that flourished, showed promise but ultimately lost out to London, of banks and bankers with vaulting ambition who made it big, came a cropper or laid waste the markets around them. It's a story of creativity, excitement, success and spectacular failure. By David Shirreff.

After five years on Morgan Stanley's fixed-income syndicate desk in London, would-be rock star Eden Riche is leaving. Riche was one of the guiding lights behind Morgan Stanley's steady rise to the top tier of Eurobond underwriters over the past few years, along with former department head Riccardo Pavoncelli, who three months ago moved to head the firm's media banking group.

An extensive audit of 18 Russian commercial banks shows that many bigger ones are - by western standards - clinically dead. International lenders have lost patience. They want to push Russia's central bank and government into a major overhaul of the sector. But they lack the leverage to enforce it. And the central bank lacks the will. John van Schaik reports.