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David Komansky, Merrill Lynch's chairman and chief executive, has confirmed what many market commentators, and Merrill employees, have been expecting for months: he plans to step down as CEO before his official retirement date of April 2004. He does intend to stay on as chairman until that time.

It's a common assumption, in the US and abroad, that Americans believe they have the best financial system in the world and that it is the most open, the most progressive, and the best model for others to follow. But consider this statement from an American institutional investor. "You know, I really don't like the Vorstand-style of governance favoured in parts of Europe," he told Euromoney last month. "But maybe it does have some advantages over our system." His beef is simple: "The US CEO has become more and more the fox guarding the hen house," he explains. "And he is enriching himself and his executives in the process. More and more companies are being run for the benefit not of the shareholders but of the people running the firm."

A lot is riding on Brazil’s success. It has always been the dominant economy in south America but until Argentina collapsed it did not have to play a leadership role in sustaining investor sentiment about the region. Today Brazil must rise to its economic challenges or be held responsible not only for its own stagnation but for sinking south America as an economically significant continent.

Let's hope John Mack is not too downhearted at his failure to lure his old friend Walid Chammah away from Morgan Stanley. It would appear to be the first setback the chief executive of CSFB has had since replacing Allen Wheat last July.

After years of complaints from regulators and private-sector rivals that Germany’s state banks are taking unfair advantage of public guarantees, the issue is in sight of being resolved. The EC has decreed that the Landesbanken will have to do without this subsidy within three years. Most state bank officials are confident that they can find new ways to compete but others are not so sure.

If people thought the out-of-court settlement between Unilever and Merrill Lynch had laid the whole affair to rest, they were wrong.

VENEZUELA

Egged on by vociferous fans, Galatasaray is doing well. Turkey's top football club has not been beaten for 18 home European matches.

SPAIN

It's one of finance's most elite clubs, though its members don't accept that it exists. It's made up of the handful of heavyweight economists who advise governments in emerging-market crises while holding down senior positions at the investment banks that lend money and arrange financing for these countries. But Argentina has exposed the limits of their power and raised questions about whose interests they're serving.

When Forexster launched, it said it wouldn’t be just any new forex trading platform. It would revolutionize the market, taking banks out of forex trades and enabling clients to deal directly with each other. Banks and existing platforms scoffed at the idea, saying that while that model was attractive, the complex structure of credit lines involved would never work. Forexster begs to differ. Now it is filing for a patent to prove it. Still the banks think this is pie in the sky but if the patent works it could damage banks and rival platforms.

Canada’s secretary of state (international financial institutions)