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The European securitization market used to be characterized by small, esoteric deals rather than the large standardized issues dominant in the US. Things are changing, but not towards the US model. Strategic securitizations to finance M&A, synthetic structures and deals to cover non-performing loans are fuelling investment banks’ enthusiasm for the market. Michael Peterson reports

When an institution declares that under no circumstances will it reform you can be sure it faces a rocky future. The idea that any economic player, public or private, can carry on acting in the same old way, regardless of external changes, strikes most people as absurd. Yet this is what the Paris Club believes. Events will surely force it to shape up or wind up.

If all goes as planned Komercni banka, the second largest Financial institution in the Czech Republic and the last state-owned bank, will Find itself in the hands of a strategic partner by the end of March 2001. As the privatization draws near, the Czech government appears to have learned from the mistakes it made during previous bank sales.

Bankers and their regulators converging on Prague for the IMF/World Bank meetings this month should be nervous about the vulnerability of the world financial system to attack - not by aliens, hackers or international terrorists but by the shortcomings of thousands of interdependent institutions. Highly correlated and linked financial markets mean contagion can spread in seconds. Short of rebuilding national barriers, like electronic iron curtains, there's no way to isolate ourselves from contamination. The reforming countries of central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are a weak link. They need more help and example from the west. Bringing in foreign strategic investors isn't a panacea, as the following pages show.

Protests against her austerity package and calls for her resignation have failed to stop Brigita Schmögnerovà from doing the most exciting job she has ever had. By Jonathan Brown

Last month Freddie Mac did something that solid, dependable US agencies are not supposed to do: it took a gamble. It announced that it would start borrowing large amounts in euros.

Two years ago the Korean banking sector was in crisis. Foreign banks were nervous of making acquisitions. Today, although total banking-sector losses are still high, a core of mid-sized profitable banks has emerged. None, though, is large enough to prosper in the long term and the race is on to find complementary partners in an increasingly competitive market. Simon Brady reports

"Ever since foreign banks were able to open representative offices we were confident that the door would open wider and wider," says Samuel Lau, manager of HSBC's Beijing branch office. "But we never knew when or how far the door would open. [China's impending membership of] WTO establishes a Firm timetable which is important in terms of planning future resource allocation."

The policy team of new Mexican president Vicente Fox has thought of everything. An impressive set of reforms covering the central bank, capital markets, the fiscal deficit, the energy sector and judiciary are all laid out ready. But can they be got through congress and made to work free from interference and corruption? Mexico is facing one of the biggest make or break periods in its history, writes Andrea Mandel-Campbell

Forewarned is Forearmed: or How to survive in some of the riskiest business travel destinations in the world

Conversation in Kazkakhstan in recent months has centred on one topic: oil. What appears to be a major new find has excited locals, multinationals operating in the energy sector and buyers of an oversubscribed sovereign Eurobond. The prospect of this impoverished country, where the average wage is barely $100 a month, becoming the next Kuwait has also enabled the nation teasingly to play prospective bride to both the West and Russia. Ted Kim reports

The great triumph of last year’s IMF/World Bank meeting was the unveiling of an agreement on debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries. But now that the promises are coming due, the international financial institutions are claiming poverty. This is special pleading - they have more than enough resources to cover the entire $45 billion multilateral share of the debt. The familiar cycle of debt and default will repeat itself, Adam Lerrick argues, unless the reform required of borrowing nations is matched by reform in the agencies themselves.