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A joint venture that can only be described as a success, Nikko Salomon Smith Barney is a rare creature, and other banks in Japan are green with envy.

The existence of the Sparkassen and Landesbanken is derived from their public mission, but, when everything else is being privatized, why should banks be an exception.

In the first two months of this year there has been a dramatic reconfiguration of market variables in the US, including interest rates, credit spreads and the yield curve. Both a result of and contributing to these seismic shifts in the financial landscape has been business completed by mortgage portfolios to hedge negative convexity. Dealers have been rocked on their feet by the scale of volatility buying, and the fear that if rates back up, the mortgage holders will unwind the positions and sell convexity, making any general market sell-off much more severe than would otherwise be the case.

Merrill Lynch is reshuffling its European investment banking division to create a new structured credit unit.

When the new Basel proposals come into force in 2004, the effects will be felt throughout the financial system. Corporate and sovereign borrowers should see their borrowing costs increase or decrease as a result of the change in bank asset weightings.

All the online bond trading platforms that are likely to emerge have already been announced. That already seems to be too many. One merger has already taken place and others will probably follow soon.

The news coming out of Japan has for a long time been wholly discouraging. Its economy has been on the operating table for the best part of 10 years. The government, unsure, unable or unwilling to make use of the scalpel, resorts to placing band-aids over gaping wounds. The cauterizing effect of injecting trillions of yen into the ailing system is also wearing off. Intermittent signs of recovery often prove no more than false dawns. And the country is running out of its self-prescribed medicine. But there are going to be some winners – quite possibly the foreign investment banks. As companies take it on themselves to restructure, or are forced to, those familiar vultures are circling overhead.

Brazil's Novo Mercado is Bovespa’s latest attempt to bring the country's Brazilian equity markets up to western standards of transparency, liquidity and governance. It is modelled on Germany’s Neuer Markt, but so far hasn’t had any listings.

So far, Telecom Italia is the only telecoms company to make public plans to issue a securitized bond. It will raise up to Eu1 billion in the second quarter of 2001 by selling bonds secured on fixed-line customer bills.

In a new round of negotiations on state support for German public-sector banks, the European Commission and the German government are urgently seeking a solution. But they are not the only participants in the dispute. The stakes are high for the municipalities and federal states which fear the demolition of the whole public-sector banking system. They are not ready to give in without a fight that might yet widen into a complex legal dispute requiring years to resolve. As the conflict intensifies, the public banks still have the chance to become strong, independent institutions.

The IMF is making changes to pacify the Bush administration after new US treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, sounded a note of scepticism about the role of supranational organizations in the capital markets. O'Neill stated on February 15 that he attaches particular priority to a "transparent and accountable" IMF. O'Neill sees the IMF's role as one of a watchdog in the markets, alerting governments to growing problems before they fully develop.

David Clementi, deputy governor at the Bank of England, says the use of credit derivatives in securitization poses a threat to capital market stability.