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Banks and exchanges are working to expand their commodity-based products to capture new opportunities that will arise from the burgeoning European carbon dioxide emissions trading scheme. The use of Isda documents is already boosting trade volumes. And banks are starting to lend against allowances as collateral.

back to White shoe seeks blue blood

Pension funds welcome a new bond indexed to life expectancy which should cut the cost of matching a growing risk.

Shariah-compliant finance pioneers.

A prominent Hong Kong investment banker related a tale of events surrounding the recent death of an unnamed local property magnate. On learning of their father's imminent demise, his two sons rushed to the patriarch's bedside. Seeing him losing his grip on life, the siblings eyed each other, consulted and rushed their father from his hospital bed. They boarded a helicopter for Macau where the old man passed away peacefully.

The market for Shariah-compliant finance has grown rapidly in size and sophistication in the past few years, demanding expertise in regulation, product structuring, legal services and marketing. Nigel Dudley speaks to pioneers of the industry.

Mexico

When readers of Physics World recently voted for their favourite equations, it was no surprise when Clerk Maxwell's electromagnetism theory, which established the link between magnetism and electricity, topped the poll. Maxwell's 1873 classic beat strong competition from the likes of Einstein's e=mc2, and Pythagoras's a2 + b2 = c2. But the poll also sounded a word of warning for investors. Schrödinger's equation (HY = EY), which finished fifth in the poll, was devised by Erwin Schrödinger in the 1920s to explain how sub-atomic particles like electrons behave. As such, Cambridge, UK-based company quantumBEAM decided to design its radical optical communications technology around Schrödinger's work.

Will Cazenove's blue-blood culture and exclusive corporate clientele be under threat in its joint venture with JPMorgan? Rivals would like to think so but the two parties are aware of how crucial these features are. What's more, there's nowhere much else for top corporate customers to go. The biggest danger is that the merged firm will cater for so many blue chips in such sectors as mining that conflicts of interest might emerge.

back to Call in the six sigma altruists

Private banking FirstRand has finally offloaded subsidiary Ansbacher Group to the approval of all involved. The sale to Qatar National Bank (QNB) of the group, which provides financial services to high-net-worth clients internationally, was completed in November, opening a door to the lucrative and expanding high-net-worth market in Qatar.