In any economic downturn, banks are nearly always the first businesses to suffer, which is why the recent spike in credit growth among Korea’s banks looks alarming.

Often accused of being unwilling to make use of cutting-edge investment techniques, Japanese institutions are more and more attracted to the heady mix of strong ratings and high yields offered by structured credit. But the development of the market is threatened from several directions, and some worry that an over-cautious investor base could prove as dangerous as a reckless one. Lawrence White reports from Tokyo.

It’s not an impressive sight. Senior executives of leading financial firms have been castigating the media and investors for over-reacting to the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, insisting that their own firms remain sound and yet simultaneously pleading with the central banks to come and bail them out. It’s either a crisis or it’s not, guys. So which way do you want it?

Bankers with emerging markets backgrounds are taking most of the senior positions in their firms.

Germany’s banking system is in dire straits, and the answer could be a radical one.

But the flood is likely to be smaller than some bullish observers expect.

Private equity firms have a nice business flipping companies from one to another. But what happens when the music stops?

Funds of hedge funds with underlying managers that have gone sour are understating the losses they have incurred.

The banks look to be overstretching themselves in borrowing abroad to fund increasingly risky domestic lending.

Have policymakers sent the wrong signal to financial markets?

The problems in the SIV sector are not only the result of funding and mark-to-market distress, but also because of sloppy structuring in the first place.

Population-growth and climate trends point to the growing importance of agricultural commodity markets.

After an absence of almost half a century, private-sector banks are once again doing business in Syria. Some three years after the first pioneers opened their doors, the country’s economic landscape is still in full transformation – and competition is beginning to heat up. Alex Warren reports.

Market-making commitment is under pressure.

Families have always dominated the economies of the Gulf, controlling huge amounts of wealth and influence but traditionally unwilling to open up their capital – and their books – to the outside world. That model is gradually starting to change, says Alex Warren.

Too many sellers and not enough buyers curtail market growth.

NBG, Greece’s largest bank, is doing well out of a domestic growth surge but has recognized the need to find the fastest-growing, most profitable parts of the market. The same strategy is being applied to its ambitious expansion programme abroad. Laurence Neville reports.

When Deutsche Bank announced in August that it had retained former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan to provide insights and advice to the bank and its clients, competitors were quick to point out the irony.

The global economy may be strong, but that does not make it immune to cyclical liquidity contraction.

Saudi Arabia’s 2004 Capital Markets Law has brought something of a fresh start to all investment banks in the kingdom, whatever their size. But most of the smaller new entrants are aware that they need to develop niche businesses in the face of competition from larger rivals. Nigel Dudley reports.

Serbia’s equity market has spent most of the year firmly in positive territory. But can the good times last? Guy Norton reports from Belgrade.

Kazakhstan’s economic boom has transformed the country into the undisputed economic leader in central Asia. But can it be a springboard for expansion in the rest of the region? Guy Norton reports from Almaty.

A growing social conscience about the environment has opened up new technologies and markets that offer hedge funds new areas in which to find alpha. But it is still a nascent area and the number of players is small. Helen Avery interviews four managers to see how they are approaching the emerging asset class.

The IMF has mandated Publishing Technology, an AIM-listed provider of publishing-specific software solutions, to create an e-library, bringing all of the IMF’s resources online.

Hedge funds are in the news for all the wrong reasons. But strident calls for regulation are more than just wrong, they are downright dangerous. Financial markets need hedge funds more than ever.

In a further sign of the burgeoning geographic ambitions of companies from Kazakhstan, oil and gas firm KazMunaiGas (KMG) has bought a 75% stake in Romania’s Rompetrol Group.

In the clearest sign yet that Turkmenistan is opening to foreign direct investment, the country has granted the first gas production licence to an overseas company. China’s national oil company, CNPC, has received approval to develop a field in the Amu Darya region in eastern Turkmenistan – the first new gas deposit to be developed since Soviet times. The project includes pipelines that will carry gas east across the region to China. CNPC eventually expects to produce 17 billion cubic metres of gas a year from the field.

Deutsche Bank has lost its head of European ABS origination, Jeff Stolz, to Goldman Sachs. As a managing director in the financing group, Stolz will undertake a similar role at the US firm, which has not had an ABS chief for a number of years. Deutsche has yet to announce a replacement.

Indonesian companies have chosen to fund their businesses in esoteric ways, and that may be at the expense of developing a mature equity market. Old habits will prove tough to change. Chris Leahy reports.

Merger talks between E*Trade and TD Ameritrade could be a sign of things to come.