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The emergence of investable hedge fund indices has provoked a great deal of debate in the hedge fund industry, with extravagant claims being made by both proponents and detractors.

API stands for application programming interface. Sadly for linguistic purists it has become a geekspeak verb; so banks can "API into another bank" or, as one user puts it: "We just API what we need." But API matters. Crudely put, it is a method of allowing programmers to develop additional functionality to boost the capabilities of a given piece of software. It is a way for banks to retain proprietary control over off-the-shelf products, and can mean that a lesser product can rival a more expensive one after the in-house programmers have got their hands on it. Any product worth its salt in the financial technology world (and far beyond - Google, for example, offers API tools) will give its users the opportunity to build on top, thereby combining the best of both buy and build worlds.

The respondent: The survey was sent to software companies' clients as well as to 300 heads of technology at banks worldwide. Each respondent was able to rate up to three software products, including those from other vendors, in every applicable functional category (six categories, and a total of 22 sub-categories therein). Euromoney received 130 verified unique client respondents, generating 437 different ratings.

A new style of leveraged financing is set to take off in Europe as hedge funds' appetite for second-lien debt crosses the Atlantic.

The US Federal Reserve?s upward interest rate move at the end of June came as no great surprise on Wall Street. It might well have been noteworthy for being the first rise in four years but noises about inflationary concerns and US economic growth had already made a 1.25% rate a dead cert. ?The 25 basis points increase had been priced in a month before,? says one Wall Street trader.

This ranking of emerging market banks was compiled by Moody's Investors Service from commercial banks' annual reports and financial statements. Where possible, figures are in consolidated form. Banks owned by other financial institutions are not listed separately. Subsidiaries and branches are not shown either.

Ask most Hong Kong bankers frequenting the bars of Lan Kwai Fong about their last brush with anything Czech and most would point to sleepless nights watching the Republic?s flirtation with football greatness at the recent Euro 2004 championships. If local hedge fund manager Richard Johnson has his way, though, that is about to change.

Hedge funds regularly close or return money to investors, so the decision last month by David Muschel to return capital to investors in his Jemmco fund ought to have been unexceptional. But the explanation he gave gives pause for thought. Some of the fund's strategies, he said, simply cannot perform in today's environment.

To integrate or not is the question facing Ukraine?s powerful oligarchs in the last months of president Leonid Kuchma?s 10-years in power.

Despite pockets where problems persist, privatization, consolidation, and improved risk management and regulation are bringing widespread advances in emerging market banking systems.

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The UK's financial regulator will take a dim view of companies that respond in a legalistic way to its investigations, threatening exemplary sanctions against those that don't cooperate fully.