Which US investment bank is back in the top 10? Which Danish bank breaks into the top 25 for the first time? What’s the best multi-bank platform – FXall or Currenex? And who are the leading local banks in emerging market FX? Here are the views of over 8,000 end-users who transacted over $120 trillion in the past 12 months.

Low volatility in the FX market should not necessarily mean low returns.

Is Poland the new Russia? Not in economic superpower terms, but in riding roughshod over the wishes of foreign investors?

"Help me.... I’m cold... I don’t know where I am... there are bugs crawling all over me..."

The Argentine government has advised Ecuador not to follow its example and default on its debt.

The usual post-bonus round of recruitment has generated a typical flurry of activity in Asia’s investment banking community. The one area that has been notably active is the debt capital markets business as banks reposition their businesses to reflect the exceptionally strong market conditions of 2006 and the start of this year.

Czech power provider CEZ has been voted central and Eastern Europe’s best-managed company for the second year running. Rising energy prices are helping the firm to record strong profits, but why are analysts so impressed by the firm’s management? Lawrence White reports.

The International Securities Exchange, which pioneered electronic equity option trading in the US, has listed contracts on four currency pairs: US dollar/euro, US dollar/sterling, US dollar/yen and US dollar/Canadian dollar. Timber Hill will serve as the primary market maker, and Citigroup Derivatives Markets, Lehman Brothers and Optiver US will act as competitive market makers. The contracts are very much aimed at the US retail sector.

FXMarketSpace, the 50/50 joint venture owned by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Reuters, officially went live as planned at the end of the first quarter.

As of June 1, Rupert Allan, president of Tremont Capital, will be taking on the role of CEO.

Rapid growth of Caja Madrid’s mortgage book last year prompted the Spanish savings bank to issue its first RMBS transaction. But as executive managing director and head of capital markets Carlos Stilianopoulos explains, the bank has its sights firmly set on the CLO market in 2007. Louise Bowman reports.

International banks continue to flock to Turkey, where the lure of a 70 million-plus population that is becoming increasingly bankable presents an almost irresistible attraction. Among the latest entrants to the Turkish banking market is Bank TuranAlem, Kazakhstan’s number two bank by assets. After nine months of negotiations it has secured a 33.98% stake in Sekerbank for TL424.7 million ($256 million). The acquisition was conducted by BTA’s investment banking arm, TuranAlem Securities, whose chief executive, Kairat Bektanov, says that the Sekerbank transaction is part of an expansion strategy that has transformed BTA from a purely Kazakh operation into a major regional player. The bank already has subsidiaries in Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Ukraine as well as representative offices in China, Tajikistan and the United Arab Emirates.

Société Générale has acquired a 100% stake in Banco Cacique, a Brazilian retail firm specializing in consumer credit with 1,800 employees and about 600,000 active clients. A spokeswoman for SG told Euromoney that the move was not indicative of any plan to rush into Brazil but is rather the targeting of a specific market where strong growth is expected.

Icap has widened the distribution of its electronic forward foreign exchange platform after what it says is its successful take-up in Europe. The company says the platform will build on the success of EBS, the spot platform it bought from its mainly bank owners in 2006.

In the second half of last year, outstanding volumes of credit default swaps grew by 33%. This compares with the first half of the year, when outstanding CDS volumes grew by 52%. In 2005, CDS volumes rose by 105%. The numbers were produced by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, which announced on April 18 the results of its year-end 2006 market survey of privately negotiated derivatives.

Belgian bancassurance player KBC has become the latest foreign bank to buy into Russia. Late in April it agreed to pay up to €761 million to acquire at least 92.5% of Absolut Bank, 3.8 times the book value. It is the biggest banking M&A deal in Russia. Absolut Bank is one of the fastest-growing banks in Russia and has doubled its loan book on an annual basis for the past five years. "Over the past decade, KBC has built up a strong presence in many of the countries that joined the EU in May 2004 and January 2007. KBC’s long-term strategic plans entail further expansion in the markets of emerging Europe. Russia is therefore an extension of our existing presence in neighbouring central and eastern Europe," says André Bergen, KBC Group chief executive.

"It was one of those deals that really worked. It caught the market, it caught the moment and it caught the imagination" -Tim Skeet, Merrill Lynch

Is a high level of consolidation in the FX market sustainable? And what of the hundreds of banks that fall outside the bulge bracket?

The present run of stock market buoyancy cannot be sustained. And that’s not just because credit is set to contract – so, too, are corporate profits.

"And what drives me? I want to create a huge empire. That is what drives me. And as long as God is willing and gives me strength and I am healthy, I will do that"

But Tate & Lyle puts itself on the Pink Sheets.

Slackening underwriting standards in loans that back a burgeoning CDO market? It all sounds horribly familiar.

Given that it bought Advantage Home Loans as long ago as December 2005, Morgan Stanley has taken its time to launch its first non-conforming RMBS transaction, ResLoc UK 2007-1. But the deal is not an Advantage deal; just 9.87% of the loans in the deal are actually originated by the lender. Morgan Stanley has been busy buying whole loan portfolios from other non-conforming lenders to ramp up this deal and the lion’s share of the collateral is actually originated by GMAC-RFC (79.9%). This will certainly offer investors comfort, given GMAC’s longevity in the sector. However, given the intense scrutiny that sub-prime lending has been under of late, the low, 6.1-month seasoning of the portfolio together with its 82.6% loan-to-value ratio might give some pause for thought. The US bank hired mortgage market veteran Rob Collins from Abbey last year to front its residential mortgage securitization business.

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Head of prime brokerage Hannah Goodwin talks about expansion of the bank’s services to Singapore.

The opening up of the Chinese FX market has continued with the unveiling of a new trading platform by the China Foreign Exchange Trade System. The platform, which uses Reuters’ electronic trading technology, initially went live on March 12 for currencies other than the yuan before being expanded to allow CFETS member banks to trade the yuan against five other currencies in early April.

The range of structured credit products on offer to investors has grown as they seek to increase returns in a low-yield environment. The next stage, led by CPDOs, is to create more spread-based, rated products that incorporate default and market risk.

Dominion Bond Rating Service is now an eligible External Credit Assessment Institution with 11 EU countries. It is part of a long drive by the Canadian-headquartered rating agency to break into the industry oligopoly.

"Oh shit!"

FIAB and IADB aim to launch market for shares this year.