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Theirs is a modern fairytale romance that blossomed amid the spreadsheets. In these hard times, the Danish Prince Gustav zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg must work to support himself despite bearing a royal title. But in between working as a relationship manager for Citibank Private Banking and being a prince, Gustav has met his future wife, a venture capitalist, in London's Financial heartland.

Former director, research & statistics division, US Federal Reserve

As the huge conglomerates that have long dominated Germany's economy transform themselves into sleek, focused businesses, a procession of corporate assets has come to the market.

Ever on the look-out for new and lucrative corners of the capital markets, many firms have identified what is often called capital management as a promising niche. At its most respectable, this business consists of advising banks and other companies on how to measure and manage the true economic risks of their activities. More often than not, however, it is about cold-calling bank treasurers and trying to sell them ideas for complex deals. Michael Peterson reports

Troubles continue at Scottish Widows, whose chief executive, Orie Dudley, is leaving after publicly criticizing his bosses.

Grigory Marchenko, Chairman of the National Bank of Kazakhstan

For decades America ran huge budget deficits, only balancing the books in the last two years of the most astonishing economic boom on record. Now the two presidential candidates are rubbing their hands at the prospect of spending huge projected surpluses. They should be planning to meet the country’s real long-term financial challenges, rather than frittering the bounty away in popular tax cuts and spending. The age of sound economic leadership in the US may be about to come to an end. Antony Currie reports

After the BJP-led coalition came to power last year, prime minister Vajpayee set up a new department of disinvestment and placed a young, telegenic lawyer, Arun Jaitley in charge.

What is the character of Nordic Baltic Holdings?

The financial playing field in Japan is as loaded against the foreigner as baseball is there. That’s the message sent out by recent disciplinary actions against foreign securities houses. But the dynamics are more complex. The new Financial Supervisory Authority needs to show who’s boss. And historically there have been more constraints on Japanese than foreign firms. Kevin Rafferty reports

More and more emerging countries are developing asset-backed securities markets as a way to improve on inefficient bank financial intermediation. The aim is to stimulate domestic investment, as well as to attract international investors that have long bought emerging-market issues backed by hard-currency receivables. With a little help from the IFC, mortgage securitization schemes are now running in Argentina and South Africa. The IFC has also helped develop more complex lease securitizations in Korea and Turkey. If securitization markets are to grow as big as those in Europe and the US, radical changes are needed in bankruptcy laws, regulation and standards of disclosure. James Smalhout reports