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Flush with petrodollars and ambitious plans, Nigeria’s banks are coming to London. Guaranty Trust Bank, one of Nigeria’s leading banks, has just been authorized by the UK’s Financial Services Authority to operate as a bank in the UK. Its subsidiary, GTB UK, which is based in Margaret Street in London, will focus on commercial activity in areas where there are already established links between Nigeria and the UK and the other countries where it operates, including Gambia and Sierra Leone. The subsidiary will provide banking services such as receiving deposits and writing mortgages for both commercial and retail customers and intermediates.

Market sources suggest that Advent, a leading private equity firm, is set to exit from its majority stake in Nuevo Banco Comercial, the second-largest privately owned bank in Uruguay. This follows an agreement to sell NBC to the Gilinski family, who own GNB Sudameris, a small commercial bank in Colombia. The deal will probably be concluded this month.

Ukraine’s financial institutions are thriving despite renewed political upheaval. A surge in M&A and IPO activity could be the next stage.

It has become increasingly recognized that the attraction of flow from the retail aggregators can have a huge impact on the volumes of sell-side institutions.

May 2nd's FT.com carried an article "HSBC THWARTS ATTEMPTED £70.5M FRAUD", reporting on the latest bank to be hit by attempted fraud. Euromoney's 'HSBC calls in police for €90 million fraud investigation', published 30 April, was the first to report this story.

Have a look at euromoney.com's summary of previous financial frauds and scandals.

Inter-dealer broker Icap has confirmed that it is trialling and will soon launch an internet-based version of its EBS spot trading platform. EBS Global Access is scheduled for launch by the end of June and the company says it is intended to provide a cost-effective and easy means of accessing the foreign exchange market’s predominant spot liquidity pool. Icap says that all manually traded EBS products – spot FX, precious metals and non-deliverable forwards– will be available on EBS Global Access. Clients will not have to install any hardware and Icap says they will have the same access to the EBS liquidity pool as existing users. While latency is potentially an issue, Icap says that the benefits are reduced telecom costs and time to market. It is estimated that deployment of EBS Global Access will take less than a week.

Moscow’s state-of-the-art Domodedovo airport is a shining example of a highly successful infrastructure project in Russia, which has won plaudits from airlines and passengers alike. But it’s also at the centre of a tussle between a government agency and its private sector owners, that highlights the fact that infrastructure development in Russia is not without significant political and financial risk.

Just as banks in Russia were beginning to resemble their peers outside the country, engaging in conventional retail and corporate banking, the western financial market crisis hit. Reduced availability of long-term funding from abroad highlights the shortage of such a market in Russia and reveals a systemic vulnerability. Will this help state-owned banks, which had previously been losing market share, turn the tables on their privately owned rivals?

Cash management debate: The march of progress