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Macquarie has steered a profitable course, avoiding head-on confrontation with global competition through niche strategies. So its acquisition of ING?s Asian cash equities business is puzzling. Can it succeed where ING failed or could this mark the unravelling of the Macquarie miracle? Chris Leahy reports

Barry Colvin gave up his competitive running career years ago to devote himself to keeping Tremont?s fund of hedge funds business on track. ?My favourite hobby is working to run this business,? he says. While he exudes dedication to his job he says: ?If I wasn?t doing this, I?d run a health club. I love that environment.? In his position as president and CIO of Tremont since the beginning of 2002, Colvin leads the firm?s research and investment management activities. Over coffee at the Park Lane Hotel in London, he explains he?s in the city to research hedge fund managers. He spends a lot of time on business travel, so his wife usually joins him.

Afghanistan International Bank, owned by a consortium of Afghan and US investors and managed by ING?s Institutional and Government Advisory group (ING-IGA), has opened for business in Kabul.

It took a year and at least one false start, but John Walsh has finally returned to the markets. He turned up at Royal Bank of Scotland, nearly a year after he walked out of his role at CSFB as global head of debt capital markets. His title at RBS is head of North American corporate credit markets.

With foreign players set to start investment banking operations in Saudi Arabia, local banks are confident that they can meet the challenge.

By 2002 Capital One's rapid growth took it deep into sub-prime territory, stirring up a crippling rise in its borrowing costs and scaring off bond investors. Having learnt its lesson, the credit card firm has made a remarkable return to favour.

Recent cases involving sovereigns have shown how open to interpretation pari passu clauses are. Do they dictate equal payment to all similarly ranked creditors? If so, the international financial architecture faces a huge new risk.

Small private banks wanting to offer their clients investments in soft commodities are increasingly using hedge funds as a point of entry. Interest in commodities has risen as high-net-worth investors seek diversification, but small private banks lack choice when offering third-party products.

Pakistan's economy is growing at an unprecedented rate but foreign investors, exercised by doubts about political stability, haven't heard the good news.

As the award of the best bank in sub-Saharan Africa category to Standard Bank indicates, South Africa remains the major driving force in introducing efficient, hi-tech banking systems across the continent.

“When I arrived, Depfa wasn’t just German,” says Gerhard Bruckermann. “It was ultra-German. This was 13 years ago, just after privatization, and nobody thought about profitability.”

Evare LLC, a technology company specializing in the acquisition, transformation and delivery of financial data, has announced the availability of IDocs formatted bank data for use in the SAP treasury model.