Amidst all their other problems, just how well prepared are Japanese financial institutions for the millennium computer bug? After more than a year of debate and the odd testy exchange between banking officials and information officers across the Pacific some real evidence could soon be at hand.

Economists and academics will long ponder why east Asia's currencies have depreciated so much. Euromoney thinks it may have found the answer - perhaps each country is trying to outdo the others for the title of cheapest currency in Asia.

Mexican corporates are raring to go but the borrowing outlook is grim. International markets are expensive, the local banking sector weak. The big names can raise funds but may be hit because their customers are cash-strapped. By Matthew Doman.

In an uncertain world, one thing is clear. Persistent rumours that a displeased or desperate Japan will cause financial mayhem by suddenly offloading its US government bond holdings is nonsense. This possibility is so universally reject by informed market participants that it's hard to see how it ever gained any credibility.

From the Silk Road, to Basingstoke, to Buenos Aires, the HSBC Group has grown into one of the most formidable names in international banking. Its recent spurt of acquisitions - which have made it the most profitable bank in the world three years running - were masterminded by the workaholic Scotsman William Purves, who gave up the role of chairman this year. His long-time deputy, John Bond, is today the taipan of a bancassurance group that grew out of the old HongkongBank founded in 1865 in a diversification strategy that is looking wiser by the day.

What's behind Lehman Brothers' decision to form an executive committee? The news this August that the heads of the major businesses would join chief executive Richard Fuld in a six-member committee came four years after Lehman split from its marriage with American Express Bank. Ostensibly, the team is being set up to formulate strategy.

Their mission is the same: to hunt down and execute mandates. They're all winners. Yet their tactics differ greatly, reflecting the varied cast of characters now reigning on Wall Street - tough New Yorkers, Cuban exiles, a laid-back Brazilian, an English lawyer, even a Senegalese photographer. Brian Caplen investigates the mix.

George Jedlicka, managing director and chairman of Expandia Finance finds it hard to call Tomas Pardubicky, his colleague, Mr Pardubicky, as formality demands. It's understandable: Pardubicky is a fresh-faced 23-year-old who has been at Expandia just a year and confesses that he is still finishing a university degree. With a laugh, Jedlicka gives up, and reverts to the more familiar Tomas.

Ukraine has been pushed to the brink by Russia's financial turmoil and the government's resistance to reform. The treasury bill market needs restructuring or there will be default, equity trading has ground to a standstill, and foreign investors are counting the days until they can get their money out of the country. Theodore Kim reports.

Is it a correction rather than a crisis? Perhaps, but consider this sobering list of 31 crises, prepared by Tim Bond, a strategist at Barclays Capital. His conclusion? "A western equity market crash will complete this litany of disasters ... since [equities] are mispriced by most yardsticks and since their fundamentals are daily worsening."

Could it be true that Deutsche Bank was considering a bid for JP Morgan in mid-August? Deutsche was supposedly offering $175 a share in cash, 49% above the closing price the day before. But pooled accounting is forbidden by German law, so Deutsche's capital ratios would have fallen to an unsustainable and illegal level had the deal gone ahead. And Deutsche's recent history is hardly such as to endear Morgan's chief executive, Sandy Warner, and his senior staff to a link-up.

Brazil long needed a heavyweight in the central bank chair and now it's got one. Gustavo Franco earned his spurs in last October's Asian meltdown. His policy regime, especially the use of capital controls, is being studied around the world. Brian Caplen reports.

Must the IMF grow in size just to stomach the next bail-out, or should it reinvent itself as a tougher, global rating agency of countries and their banking systems? Such an IMF would not whisper advice into the ear of crony capitalists and then pay off their creditors - it would be a lean, mean agent of transparency and would deal out pain where pain is due. James Smalhout reports.

When their country was isolated by sanctions, South African banks had it easy. Now foreign competitors are eating away at their share of the most profitable business. Sam Swiss reports.

Russia's infamous "dark soul" is alive, if not well. In an article in a recent issue of Novaya Gazeta, Sergei Mavrodi, the architect of the MMM pyramid scheme that swindled millions of Russians out of their life savings, says that nothing would have persuaded him to invest in Russian government treasury bills (GKOs), which he calls "a low-tech version" of his own scam.

Silicon Valley investment bankers have one burning question: What's the next move for the "technology mafia" - the dozen or so influential hedge and mutual funds that turned technology issues into Wall Street's new blue-chip stocks?

The words "frying pan" and "fire" spring to mind. Sitting in his office overlooking the trading floor, Alexander Knaster, CSFB's Moscow president, discusses his move to Alfa Bank, where from October 4 he will take over the newly merged commercial and investment banking operation. Though troubled, CSFB remains the market leader in almost all areas of investment banking in Russia. Knaster's new employer, by contrast, was the house bank of one of Russia's weaker financial-industrial groups. Now it is being thrown into an ill-defined merger with Inkombank and the National Reserve Bank in a desperate bid to survive.

It finally happened. After lurching from crisis to crisis - muddling through with partial reforms and quick fixes - Russia has finally crashed out of orbit. So who is to blame? Ronan Lyons looks at the key actors in the drama. Who are the seven oligarchs and were they behind the decision to devalue? What was really happening in the governments of Chernomyrdin and Kiriyenko? And what was the role of the IMF and western investors?

Type of deal: attempted purchase

Vicious dogs and bottom-dwelling, scum-sucking creatures of the deep - and that's just what they call themselves. But don't be too unkind to the vulture funds hunting for deals in Asia, they are playing a useful role in bringing value back to a depressed continent. And they are not the only ones doing deals. Conglomerates are restructuring and western financial institutions are looking for partners. We profile a mixed bunch of Asia's top deal makers. Some are ex-soldiers, some are former consultants and analysts. One is even a leading Asian central banker

The appointment of David Robins and Malcolm Le May as respectively chief executive and head of global corporate finance at ING Barings reunites the two former UBS management partners whose high profile should go some way to reassuring insiders and clients about their new employer's commitment to investment banking.

For foreigners, Japan is a topsy-turvy land where economic theory stands on its head. Nowhere more so than in the banking sector, a gravity-defying edifice which appears to be propping up the entire economy. If you were to rebuild it, you wouldn't start from here. But it has a terrifying logic, eloquently defended by Japan's elite. And remember, they wouldn't be in this mess if the Basle committee had been tougher 10 years ago. Steven Irvine reports.

You've heard of America's forty-niners, well these are the ninety-niners, preparing for the gold-rush when Europe's single currency rolls into play in January. A frenzy of asset-allocation has already started. With a single interest rate, corporate bonds will begin to outweigh government issues, equity markets will take on new importance, and cross-border competition will drive M&A. Peter Lee reports.

Hank Paulson, appointed co-chairman and co-chief executive (to serve alongside Jon Corzine) of Goldman Sachs in June, is known for being intensely hard-working - although he says he has never prided himself on trying to work more hours a day than anyone else. A committed and active conservationist (along with his wife), he also likes to spend his holidays in the wild outdoors.

Long, long ago, when half the world was ruled by men who still believed in state control of the economy, Poland took the gamble of letting the market decide the price of goods. That dose of shock therapy in 1989 became a model for eastern Europe. The man who imposed it became one of the region's leading economic thinkers. Now he is back at the helm of the Polish economy. James Rutter talks to Leszek Balcerowicz about history, movies and the trials of coalition government.

Foreign banks are trying to sell investment-banking services in Croatia but so far with limited success. Delays in state sell-offs and corporate restructuring aren't helping. By Charles Olivier.

The price of failure is not something that traders like to contemplate, no matter how used to it they have become during the summer financial market crisis. But in the first weeks of 1999, they may be forced to confront failure on an unprecedented scale; the introduction of the euro could make it inevitable.

The crises, first in east Asia, then on the doorstep in Russia, have side-swiped Central Asia but the downturn is not without hope. Kazakhstan is pressing on with reforms despite the slide in commodity prices, and opening up to foreign banks. Uzbekistan may be stuck in a time warp, but Azerbaijan shows new signs of offering value to foreign banks and investors. By Suzanne Miller.

During the crisis in emerging markets, equity fund managers that have invested in Asia, Latin America and eastern Europe are most concerned with their exposures to specific countries. How much do they have in Russia, how much in Indonesia? According to a report by ING Barings, however, those portfolios managers may be asking the wrong questions. They should be analyzing how much they have in value stocks, how much in growth.

European cartel watchdogs swooped on seven Austrian banks in June believing there was evidence of a price-fixing ring. Not so, say Austrian bankers, just an informal luncheon club. What's the truth? And what triggered the interest from Brussels? It's a story of Euro-politics, cut-throat competition, a little history and a tragic suicide. David Shirreff reports.