Bob Rubin could be the next president of the United States - and within a matter of months.

Almost no-one outside Japan has noticed, but an unprecedented wave of mergers in the financial sector is about to hit the headlines.

If you're still not ready for monetary union, Deutsche Bank might just have the answer.

If Arab states are to build industrialized trading economies on their oil wealth they will need internationally accessible capital markets trading a full range of financial instruments. Without these, Arab funds abroad - let alone foreign capital - are unlikely to flow in. Nigel Dudley reports.

Issuer: Gazprom

The hard lessons of recession mean that debt financing is going out of style in Finland, where an invigorated stock market and a brace of privatizations offer a boost for equities. William Essex reports.

Hillboot Intergalactic PLC,

The pressures of qualifying for Emu are forcing governments to privatize faster than they might otherwise think prudent. There's a convergence of issues as well as a convergence of currencies. Is it all more than the market can bear? Catherine Garner reports.

Bankers like to wring their hands every time a competitor is forced to report a big loss caused by a rogue trader or poor controls.

With civil war and political manoeuvring giving way to economic reconstruction, Bosnia and Herzegovina is facing up to the need to attract foreign investment and trade finance. An innovative World Bank political risks guarantee facility announced in March should prove a useful element in this process.

The world is all perversity. The worst that could happen to investors is stronger global growth, producing weak financial markets. That will happen if Japan picks up this year at the same time as core Europe, and there is a continued boom in the US.

Issuer: Republic of Ecuador

Are banks facing a rough ride on the information superhighway?

Officials from Brazil's national treasury are travelling nationwide singing the praises of federal domestic debt to pension fund managers. Later roadshows will sell the same story to insurance companies. They are stressing increased transparency, lower risk, higher earnings potential and a longer yield curve.

JP Morgan won plaudits for altruism when it donated RiskMetrics, a market volatility matrix, to the financial world in 1994. RiskMetrics also proved a superb way of marketing the Morgan name. Now JPM is at it again with a release of CreditMetrics for global consumption.

"It's turned out to be what we think is a perfect balance of our cultures and backgrounds - both China and Scotland," says Ian Wilson, Standard Chartered's general manager for Hong Kong, China and north-east Asia.

When Australia's corporate bond market looked like taking off twice before, it soon fell flat on its face. Things are different this time, bankers argue. Government borrowing is being cut back and pension funds have increasing amounts to invest. So spreads are narrowing and smaller corporates at least are taking the hint. The blue chips still need some persuading. Albert Smith reports.

Two new European-currency corporate high-yield bonds appeared last month, opening what could soon become a thriving sector of the international bond markets. The welcome which supposedly credit-risk-averse European bond investors gave to the two deals was quite spectacular.

Banks are constantly exploring new and cheaper ways of raising and using capital. After Tier 1 (shareholders' funds) and Tier 2 (debt capital) comes Tier 3 to support short-term trading positions. But only the adventurous Dutch have put Tier 3 to use. There seems to be more mileage in clever structures such as callable perpetuals. Jules Stewart reports.

Issuer: Household International

Rarely has a deal triggered such animosity: joint lead managers who couldn't bear the bookrunner; unreturned telephone calls; alleged breaches of a gentleman's agreement. That's if you believe the members of the syndicate. But if you believe the bookrunner, the other banks are "squawking" in their own dream world. Amid such squabbling, the $1 billion debut by the central bank of the Philippines had to be pulled at the last moment - leaving behind recriminations that will sour the Asian capital markets for years. Steven Irvine reports.

Yann Gindre became an instant celebrity last summer - but not for reasons entirely of his own choosing. When most high-rolling Euromarketeers were lying on tropical beaches or on their private yachts, Gindre became the centre of a tug-of-war, as senior executives at BZW in London jockeyed for position following the arrival of Robert Diamond from Credit Suisse First Boston as BZW's new fixed-income supremo.

News of a planned merger between Bankers Trust and broker Alex Brown came in a rush. In fact, though, the firms had long recognized their complementarities and had first started talking about a link-up in 1993. Peter Lee reports.

Yet another trading scandal came very close to rocking a major financial institution in the City of London recently. This time it was Bankers Trust which had a nasty shock when it discovered that blatant rogue trading was going on in its midst. The perpetrators this time were children from a London secondary school attending a Bankers Trust maths weekend at the University of Warwick.

A change in the way US treasuries can be settled promises to inject liquidity into repo markets denominated in illiquid currencies or in markets that lack repo. It also has ramifications for the holding of US treasuries as reserve assets. By Christopher Stoakes

Apart from some well-publicized swap operations that may have turned sour, Belgium's treasury has reduced the kingdom's cost of borrowing dramatically. But, as Charles Piggott reports, potential losses on contracts signed in the early 1990s have raised important questions for all sovereigns trying to balance market confidentiality with public accountability.

Even in the age-conscious Euromarket where the best and the brightest, like policemen, seem to get younger, Bill Winters is a classic example of a fast-track career. Still only 35, he runs all of JP Morgan's fixed-income activities in Europe. Given Morgan's surge in primary underwriting and inherent strengths in swaps and derivatives, this makes him one of the most important individuals in the Euromarket. "Bill Winters' position is not dissimilar to Jimmy Forese at Salomon Brothers in London but Bill carries the Morgan calling card which gives him a definite advantage," comments a former Salomon managing director.

Investment in private equity markets in eastern Europe is hard work, but enthusiasts reckon it's worth the effort. "In private equity we're sweating a lot trying to turn a profit, and then we look next door and see those guys making a lot of money buying and selling in the public markets," says Philippe Belot, a senior banker at the EBRD. But "we'll be better off in the longer term. We're betting on an upturn in these economies."

Euromoney's 1997 bond trading poll is dominated by SBC Warburg, ABN Amro, Deutsche Morgan Grenfell and US giants Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan. In almost all categories the continental players are on the rise. Commentary by Rebecca Dobson.