On Wall Street, the cult of McKinsey continues to flourish. Long considered the management consultancy of choice by bankers and brokers, McKinsey's image has been further burnished in recent years by the success of several ex-employees who have made the leap to the securities industry. Prominent among them are Phil Purcell, chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Larry Linden, a partner at Goldman Sachs.

"Five years from now, financial services will be virtually unrecognizable. The industry, like airlines and aerospace before it, will be dominated by a handful of national and global giants that will dwarf even the biggest players we know today." Although that's how consultants McKinsey predict developments in banking and insurance, it only echoes what every bank CEO is saying, in public or private. And they have very little time in which to answer the questions this trend raises: What is our role? Do we have the management talent to be a buyer? Should we give up and sell to the highest bidder?

The fans love them both. Weill, the deal maker, is adored by Travelers' employees who hold big stakes in the company. Meanwhile Reed has kept his iron grip on Citibank by juggling his managers and mastering detail. The culture of the two companies is as different as the style of their CEOs. But the combination could be spectacular - if they can make it work. Peter Lee takes in the show.

When they were winning, the traders of Garantia, Brazil's leading investment bank, were formidable masters of the universe, confident and overbearing. Now they are down - after substantial losses last year - no-one in Sao Paulo feels much pity. But beneath the emotions lie more serious issues: can the bank founded 27 years ago by former tennis champion Jorge Paulo Lemann survive independently? Will it be bought by an international house? If so, what will happen to its daring traders? Brian Caplen reports.

Investment bankers are sometimes accused of seeking an image that is more pin-up than pinstripes. One of their number at least will be among the throng at the Cannes film festival, but she will be quite happy for the paparazzi to keep their lenses trained on the starlets cavorting on the beach. Premila Hoon will be looking for projects to launch Société Générale's new film-finance business.

Remember when Euromoney was an eight-page pamphlet? Remember what the financial markets looked like at the time? Those interested in the history of the markets will find the answers - along with much else - in the recently published memoirs of Peter Spira, whose successful banking career with SG Warburg, Goldman Sachs and County NatWest between 1957 and 1991 was no doubt spurred on by appearing in those first issues of Euromoney in the late 1960s.

BankAmerica and NationsBank had both bought into hi-tech investment banking, so when they merged there was bound to be surplus capacity. It was worse than that, though. BA's Robertson Stephens and Nations' Montgomery Securities had a bitter mutual history and could hardly have worked together. Michelle Celarier reports.

After decades of steady growth for six big banks, the Canadian banking sector is fast consolidating. The old certainties have been undermined by the announcements of mergers between Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of Montreal in January and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Toronto Dominion Bank in April. The rush to merge follows a global trend fuelled by the need to cope with increased competition, and was stimulated by the BankAmerica/NationsBank merger in the US. But unlike their US counterparts, RBC/BMO and CIBC/TD have to run the gauntlet of rigorous banking regulation, entrenched political conventions and hostile popular opinion.

Richard Strang has spent almost all his 20-year City career at Morgan Grenfell (latterly Deutsche Morgan Grenfell), and appears, in demeanour at least, a very English banker. A tall, commanding presence, opera-loving Strang is known for his intense loyalty to his clients, for his unusual capacity for hard work and for tempering his politeness with determined persistence.