Search results for

Eiji Hirano, assistant governor of the Bank of Japan, spoke to Euromoney's Nick Parsons about Japan's views on a broadening and deepening of Asia's bond markets. He tempered his enthusiasm with an emphasis on the need for simultaneous development of the region's banking system.

Even before the arrest last month of Mikhail Khordorkovsky and the freezing of a large block of Yukos shares, Moody's decision on October 8 to raise Russia's sovereign credit rating, from Ba2 to Baa3, had been greeted with as much concern as joy. The RTS closed that day 3% up at an all-time high of 628.98. Yields for Russia's 2030 Eurobond contracted by 40 basis points.

Highly commended: BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, JPMorgan

Highly commended: Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein

Deutsche’s Autobahn bond trading platform celebrated its fifth birthday in Europe this year. Clients get live prices on about 5,000 securities in some 20 currencies. An appealingly straightforward inventory-based system, Autobahn has won plaudits for the quality of its pricing and the breadth of securities it carries, which run across the credit spectrum. A high proportion of the bank’s bond trading volumes are executed electronically. Deutsche Bank delivers Autobahn through several channels, including Bloomberg, the internet, and its API, which went live in October 2003.

For buy-side clients, TradeWeb remains the most important single channel for liquidity in the government bond market. In US treasuries, over 65,000 trades a month are executed through the platform, with an average daily volume of over $20 billion. On one day in July, dealers traded $44.8 billion-worth of US treasuries. Trading in European sovereigns increased 86% to e509 billion between the first half of 2002 and the first half of 2003. Average daily volume has hit e4.2 billion.

In June, the 11-member Executives Meeting of East Asia-Pacific (EMEAP) central banks announced the birth of the $1 billion Asian Bond Fund 1 (ABF1) - something few market observers expected to see so soon.

Highly commended: UBS

? Running a company is a thankless task now that chairmen and CEOs are regarded with suspicion not admiration. In a further affront, in the UK at least, any CEO who makes a deal to become chairman of a merged company may well face the chop.

Internet awards 2003: Back office takes control

Highly commended: UBS

Go to full results Methodology