A risk manager at a large European bank now being propped up by its government after losing billions explains how the bank’s executives used to think about regulation. One question, he recalls, used to dominate its dealmakers’ meetings with the bank’s own legal counsel: “Can we get away with this?” No one ever asked: “Should we be doing this?”

The role of treasurer must be confined to prudent funding, investment and risk management, not making a profit.

Kuwait's central bank has announced new credit facilities for local companies.

The UK Treasury’s latest bank bail-out plan will fail unless it works out what bad assets are worth.

The resolution of one Latin America banking crisis in the early 1980s could provide lessons for today’s policymakers.

Claims of special access to the best managers and extraordinary due-diligence skills are not rooted in reality.

The scale of the loss at RBS plus the talk of full nationalization and the circumstances at Merrill Lynch diverted attention from Deutsche Bank. But its losses are perhaps the most disheartening of the three.

Beleaguered European corporates can only dream of such quick and easy access to equity capital.

Yes, the share prices of RBS, Lloyds and Barclays have been crushed. The equity markets simply must adjust to banks' reduced status

Having negotiated away their covenant protection in the boom years, lenders find themselves in a weak negotiating position in the bust.

Madoff should mark the end of feeder funds.

Relationships count more than ever in the world of equity trading.

Non-performing loans will haunt the People’s Republic in 2009.

Otherwise the country faces a crisis akin to 1998.

Five years ago, Euromoney was catching up over lunch with a senior figure at a large European bank. Something was troubling him. His private bankers were reporting that emissaries from a large US-based hedge fund had been approaching wealthy European clients telling them that they had unearthed a secret formula to extract regular, risk-free returns from the stock markets.

Levels quoted make no market sense whatsoever.

Sifma’s new covered bond group seeks to find a consensus among traders. But with no public covered bond market in evidence, why now?

Jobs are far from the only concern as the car icons plead to Congress.

This crisis is only going to end when the root cause of the problem – the housing market – is fixed.

A falling oil price is limiting Hugo Chávez’s economic and political options.

Can a spending spree mask problems in banking and the broader economy?

If Congress is intent on playing the blame game, what of those who lend the stock?

Dubai’s property bubble has finally burst. For Abu Dhabi, it is a pain, but also an opportunity.

Investors are in no position to worry about niceties in bank capital raising.

Vikram Pandit needs a good deal, and fast, to save not just his tenure but possibly his bank.

US Treasury secretary Hank Paulson seems to be making an effort to rewrite his part in the failure of the US financial system, perhaps in an effort to influence the verdict of history.

Shinsei provides a reminder that bail-outs don’t make bad banks good.

The government bail out packages unveiled across developed countries last month may have prevented the collapse of a host of banks with more toxic assets than equity.

With CDS prices at unprecedented levels, the crisis shows no sign of abating.

Whisper it quietly, but Sarkozy’s bail-out plan looks the most market-savvy.