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If hedge funds have increased systemic risk, we need to find out by how much and whether the benefits outweigh the risks, says Andrew Lo and Amir Khandani’s paper on quants (see story on page 42). But registration is not the way forward. The authors back up proposals made by other academics that instead a monitoring board would make a good starting point. "By establishing a dedicated and experienced team of forensic accountants, lawyers, and financial engineers to monitor various aspects of systemic risk in the financial system, and by studying every financial blow-up and developing guidelines for improving our methods and models a capital markets safety board may be a more direct way to deal with the systemic risks of the hedge fund industry," concludes the paper. "A great idea," comments one manager, "but the banks will never allow it."

Kaupthing Bank and the state-owned Export-Import Bank of Korea both launched Mexican peso issues in October. The Export-Import bank issued a Ps1 billion ($92 million) 10-year bond. The Icelandic bank launched a Ps2.3 billion bond transaction on October 10 to become the first Nordic bank to do a public issue in Mexico. The deal was led by BBVA Bancomer and Lehman Brothers and aimed at diversifying the bank’s funding sources.

Economic growth, stability, market reform and liberalization have led to a Latin American investors into Chile, Colombia and Peru. Leticia Lozano reports.

Evolvence Capital, a Dubai alternative investment company, is on track to raise $150 million for what it claims is the region’s first hedge fund when it closes to investment next month.

The Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchange (Case) has launched a new exchange for small and medium-sized enterprises. Case has established several new trading capabilities in the past two years, such as margin trading, online trading and short-selling. Case also plans to launch a derivatives exchange late next year. "We would like to see our derivatives market competing with other emerging markets," says Maged Shawky Sourial, chairman of Case since 2005.

The Hedge Fund Working Group, a UK group of managers headed by Andrew Large, has released its extensive guide to best practices for hedge funds that it hopes will encourage a global standard.

In some parts of Latin America foreign banks continue to head the push for consolidation, but locals are beginning to cross borders. Chloe Hayward reports.

New-issue activity in the securitization markets of Russia and the CIS has dried up in recent months but VTB Bank Europe is clearly banking on a recovery. The London-based investment banking arm of VTB, Russia’s second-largest bank, has added Eke Neumann as head of retail securitization and Daniel Stadnik as head of commercial securitization. Neumann joins from DZ Bank, and Stadnik was previously at ABN Amro. Both new hires will report to Alex Medlock, head of securitization.

They are serious events but the IMF-World Bank meetings always leave plenty of room for frivolities. Investment banks compete to lay on the most lavish parties. Huge amounts are spent to attract the great and the good.

The reaction to JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citi’s proposals to launch a super-SIV called M-LEC to solve the liquidity crisis in the ABCP sector has been an equal mix of enthusiasm and cynicism.

The Euromoney debt trading poll is in its second year, and quite a year it has been. Twelve months ago credit houses were hosing their customers with liquidity in a market awash with happy traders. The action had moved out of the cash market and into a thriving derivatives sector. Structured products and indices were flourishing. "You are no longer a bond trader," Henrik Raber, head of credit trading at UBS, was saying to his staff. "You are a trader in multiple asset classes."

Icap’s announcement on October that it was buying Traiana, a held company that specializes in automated post-trade processing services, triggered some talk that the broker was looking to challenge CLS, the regulator-sponsored settlement utility. Not surprisingly, Icap was swift to play this down.