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Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, pictured below, surprised Anvar Saidenov when he appointed him as the new head of the central bank. But Saidenov has an enviable task in working out how to spend the new and growing wealth that the country is gaining from oil. Christopher Pala reports.

Customer pressure for a wider choice of top-performing products is driving banks into doing what was once unthinkable - selling their competitors' wares. But they are also finding this trend towards open architecture is encouraging them to focus on their strengths and improve their own performance. Helen Avery reports.

Having suffered significant losses when the technology bubble burst, Scandinavia's high-net-worth individuals have become more demanding about products and services they expect from their banks. And with the number of wealthy predicted to rise, banks are being spurred to tailor their offerings to suit these clients. Helen Avery reports.

The west should beware - it is about to be invaded by hordes from the east. They are not benefit-seeking immigrants but rather bargain-hunting entrepreneurs. Soon they might even be buying your bank. And in Turkey, local-born bankers with western skills are determined to drag their country into the modern capital markets era. Julian Evans profiles some of the leading eastern European entrepreneurs who are taking regional finance to a global level and Metin Munir looks at the pioneers seeking to pull Turkish banking out of stagnation.

Its bonds have traditionally traded wider than Russia's, but with its potential for a diversified manufacturing economy and a resurgence in sovereign debt issuance, Ukraine is winning renewed interest from emerging-market funds. Nick Parsons reports.

When Coutts Bank decided to make the move from in-house investment management to external investment management, it did so in one year. "If you have a large gap to cross, you don't do it with two small steps," explains Andrew Hutton, the bank's head of investment management and group investment management.

Continuing the flow of foreign investment into China, Toyota and Volvo have signed joint venture deals worth $257 million with Chinese automakers.

Liquidity within commodity markets is expected to increase as a range of new entrants begins to move into the market, according to ABN AMRO. But the trading patterns of some types of investor will also bring the greater price volatility more familiar to financial markets.

The EU and the US have hammered out a deal to address rules for auditing on both sides of the Atlantic.

The US and European Union have agreed to a general framework on how officials on both sides of the Atlantic will cooperate to oversee auditing firms. Although "the practical applications will have to be worked out," the cooperation is a step towards creating global accounting standards.

The debt markets have seen a massive increase in activity this week with large debt offerings from five companies raising over $12 billion.