In times of financial uncertainty, it is always tempting for banks to retreat to the business they know best. In the Netherlands, this means pulling back from international expansion and focusing on the domestic retail market. But there is always going to be one bank looking abroad for new opportunities.

When forex trading first harnessed the internet, banks tried to attract clients to their individual platforms. They soon faced the problem that some customers were obliged to seek the best price for every transaction. Hence the difficult birth and troubled childhood of multi-bank platforms. End-users seem little more happy with these systems than the rival banks that set them up. And before they have had a chance to digest their implications clients are being offered the prospect of trading directly with each other. Jennifer Morris reports on a market whose innovators may have taken a step too far

Francois Pinault, chairman of retail group Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (PPR) and Bernard Arnault, chief executive of luxury products company LVMH-Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton are sparring again.

Universal banks are making great strides in winning business that used to be the preserve of the investment banks. In part a function of the weak state of the financial markets, it may also be a secular trend. A big balance sheet is a mighty weapon and investment banks will be particularly pressed if they are forced to indulge in competitive lending to retain customers. Yet the investment banks’ prospects have been blighted as much by their own mistakes, such as ineptly timed waves of sackings of key personnel after losses, as by irresistible new forces.

The autocratic president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenka, was re-elected with a big majority last month on a vague platform of economic liberalization. But few expect a wave of privatization or reform. Since the collapse of the USSR a decade ago, Belarus has forged a bizarre model of economic management that defies conventional categorization. Part Soviet-style command economy, part crony capitalism, the system has given a few years of relative prosperity. Now though, amid claims that opponents have been assassinated and signs that the economy is crumbling, Lukashenka faces a reckoning. Erik D’Amato assesses the prospects for a country that will be an immediate neighbour to the EU when Poland accedes to the economic community

The days of professional footballers retiring from the sport to run a pub are well and truly gone. The riches bestowed on the game's top stars have done more than just bump up their bank balances. If the latest move by Alan Shearer is anything to go by, their new-found wealth is encouraging them to take an interest in investment strategy.

Despite huge uncertainty about the political and economic future of the Middle East, bankers there say they are still busy and that life is carrying on as normal.

"For every complicated problem," the American journalist HL Mencken wrote, "there is a solution that is short, simple - and wrong." The foreign exchange market's view of the much-mocked, formerly dismissed but now resurrected Tobin tax follows the Mencken line. The idea of a tax on foreign exchange transactions is misconceived, most commentators and market participants agree.

Rising competition in the programme trading arena has begun to change the balance between agency trading and risk trading. Agency business still controls a higher percentage, but risk trading has begun to rise.

When markets were at dizzy heights and volumes were burgeoning the rapid implementation of straight-through processing looked to be a necessity. Now, though, developers and potential customers are taking a more sober view, not least because some markets don’t yet seem ready for T+1 settlement.

Global finance is in the front line of the campaign against terrorism. The markets have so far proved resilient, thanks to a massive injection of liquidity by central banks and a brief interlude when a spirit of cooperation broke out among Wall Street rivals. Shoring up global confidence and leaning on international banks to line up for an economic war to starve terrorists of funds are now Washington's financial priorities. Broker-dealers made hay in the flurry of securities selling. But nothing can disguise the fact that the world economy and investment banking were in a parlous state even before September 11. The fog that surrounds the political and military outcome has added new uncertainty to recovery prospects.

In times of crisis, maintaining stability is crucial. Not at Merrill Lynch, it seems. Two weeks after the attacks on the World Trade Centre which forced Merrill to evacuate its headquarters for the foreseeable future, the new regime has seen fit to dispose of Jeff Peek, president of Merrill Lynch Investment Managers.

Author: Julie Dalla-Costa