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The London office of Goldman Sachs is always a good place to spot slightly scary looking men in smart suits who are whispering down their sleeves. Usually these people are perfectly harmless traders. But one Monday morning in late March, even more of these characters than usual were to be found in the bank's swanky corridors. It wasn't "bring your secret service officer to work day", but because security had been beefed up for a visit from UK prime minister Tony Blair.

Never let it be said that running a global financial services organization leaves you bereft of a sense of humour. Talking to investors in Singapore in February, Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince was reiterating his stance on future acquisitions. As Prince has publicly explained, the bulk of the $50 billion pre-tax net income that he wants Citigroup to be making in five years' time will come from organic growth. There will be no repeat of the Citicorp/Travelers merger of 1998, which was truly a transforming event for both sides.

Bolat Zhamishev was formerly the governor of Kazakhstan's central bank. Now his task is to continue developing banking supervision as chairman of the agency for financial supervision. With bank asset growth doubling every two years and some banks doubling their assets last year, are you worried that growth is too fast?

As BNP Paribas and Exane were preparing to unveil their joint venture plans, Crédit Agricole was deciding what to do with the equities businesses it had picked up along with Crédit Lyonnais last year. Crédit Agricole already had a strong brokerage business in the form of CAI Cheuvreux, which has the highest-ranked (13) pan-European research of any French broker, according to the July 2003 Thomson Extel Focus France Survey. Merging Chevreux with Crédit Lyonnais' weaker European brokerage business would have made little sense, as the overlap would have been too great. One French analyst says: "A good merger is one in which one plus one is more than two; Chevreux plus Crédit Lyonnais would probably be worth less than one."

As Putin's rule becomes more established, the political trend in Russia is firmly authoritarian and centralist. But that is not necessarily a barrier to liberal economic reforms.As Putin's rule becomes more established, the political trend in Russia is firmly authoritarian and centralist. But that is not necessarily a barrier to liberal economic reforms. Ben Aris reports.

Citigroup Private Bank has signed up golf legend Gary Player to act as an informal ambassador. As part of the multi-year endorsement, Player will represent the bank on his travels playing championship golf, and will "help to strengthen the firm's long-term relationships with some of the world's most successful families".

Methodology and explanation of tables

A group of Harvard-trained physicists and astrophysicists are trying their hand at running a hedge fund in the US. Rather aptly they've called their firm Financial Labs and launched their fund at the end of last month. The five Harvard graduates set up their firm in July last year. Since then they have been developing a technological infrastructure that they feel differentiates them from other funds. Aaron Sokasian, co-founder of Financial Labs, says: "Our approach is extremely objective and numerically based. We don't really use any kind of discretion."

This has been an exciting few weeks for Commerzbank. First it smiled its way through yet more poor results, while promising better times ahead. Days later, it sealed a merger with a retail bank. Then it awarded such low bonuses to securities staff that it risked losing talent. Here, senior executives discuss the bank's strategy, prospects for consolidation and the trouble with bonuses. Katie Martin reports

Three months into Croatia's new nationalist-led government's term, the verdict is so far, so good. The administration has worked double time to promote Croatia's chances of following neighbouring Slovenia into the EU. But it must now boost growth and get on top of the country's deteriorating public finances. Peter Lee reports.

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.