Default isn't what it used to be. Sovereigns failing to honour their international obligations used to suffer. They couldn't raise new money and the restructuring negotiations lasted for a decade. But times have changed. More than ever, sovereigns are tapping the bond markets which are proving a lot more flexible and forgiving than the old banking syndicates. A country can default, restructure and raise new money in a short space of time. With the help of rating agency Standard & Poor's, Euromoney looks at the prospects for emerging-market sovereigns - in default or otherwise - as future bond issuers. Brian Caplen reports

High interest rates, volatile equity markets and investors' growing fear of event risk are making life harder for European corporate bond issuers. Analysts now question the market's growth potential. But the long-term shift from bank to bond financing in Europe seems unstoppable. By Michael Peterson

India, once spurned by investors for its high-risk, low-skill economy, has become a magnet for foreigners who want a piece of the high-tech action in the new economy IT sector. Kala Rao reports

Banks face a series of considerable challenges when appointing their heads of e-commerce, the most obvious of which is the severe shortage of senior people who can combine any degree of internet-literacy with experience in securities markets and investment banking. Many banks have settled simply for appointing experienced and trusted managers who have proved their capability in leading traditional business divisions. Yet these may not be the ideal choices. The internet is a potentially revolutionary technology which challenges many of the business assumptions these bankers have grown up with. Antony Currie and Philip Eade talk to a sample of e-finance heads at leading American and European banks

Should the bankers who for the last two years led Nasdaq's internet IPO bonanza, until the bubble burst in April, be held in any way to blame? The new issue houses don't think so. Although they put their name to many deals which have since flopped, they were midwives to many more that made punters rich. It was impossible to slow "borderline goofy" demand when the feeding frenzy was at its height. Internet IPOs became their own crazy asset class. However those frothy IPOs, which deprived many internet companies of committed core shareholders, may hasten their doom. Antony Currie reports

It's been a tough year for many borrowers in the international capital markets. Corporate issuers in particular have fallen quickly from grace, having been the market's darlings a year ago. Now fixed income investors across the world are increasingly risk-averse. Certain sectors of the primary markets, US high yield for example, are very difficult to access. In response to these troubles, many of those borrowers that bankers and investors have nominated to be awarded for their efforts in the past 12 months have reverted to a strategy first made popular by Fannie Mae two years ago. They are striving to produce large, liquid benchmark issues that will at least give investors the comfort that they can easily trade in and out.

Last year it was equities. Last winter it was bonds. Now this summer foreign exchange, by far the largest market, finally embraces e-commerce. Single-dealer platforms will still be needed, but might only account for 25% of the volume. The seven-bank consortium behind FXall.com has grabbed all the headlines this month, but it is already a year or more behind two independent ventures, and years behind State Street's FX Connect, which since April has allowed other dealers on to the system. Why has it taken so long for forex bankers to accept the multi-bank approach, and what are the consequences of leaving it this late? Antony Currie investigates

Retail enthusiasm for equities took off in Germany with Deutsche Telekom's first flotation. And despite tech-share volatility, individuals are also latching onto the growth-stock Neuer Markt. Legal changes and plans for a merger with London and trading links with Nasdaq look set to add to market vibrancy. Charles Piggott reports