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City thinktank CSFI has been agonizing over whether to bite one of the hands that feeds it. Should it publish a paper by FSA researcher Kevin James which claims that - surprise, surprise - the gullible British public are being ripped off by their fund managers?

So far there's no world-beating example of an internet bank. Euromoney and the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation (CSFI) decided to fill the gap in three easy stages. First, drafting the structure. Second, launching a virtual retail bank. Third, diversifying into all areas, to build a veritable Merrill Lynch of the ether. That's the theory. Here's what happened at stage one, as reported by David Shirreff.

A strange side-benefit of the Asia crisis: Hong Kong becomes less brash, and the service improves. "I've always preferred living in Hong Kong during a recession," says John Manser, the great taipan of Robert Fleming, from the comfort of his London office.

Many of Bangkok's drivers owned riches beyond their wildest dreams - and never even knew about it. Mercedes, houses and even whole companies were in the names of lowly drivers as nominees for their bosses. As Thai authorities now grapple with the black hole of debt which engulfed the country, recovering the massive loans - many made to friends or relatives - is not proving as easy as hoped.

Asset Management: Allianz wants other people's money

John Heimann, chairman of the global financial institutions group at Merrill Lynch and a member of the firm's executive management committee, takes up a new position next month. After 14 years at Merrill he is retiring from Merrill to become chairman of the Financial Stability Institute at the Bank for International Settlements.

The key to prospects for world growth in 1999 is Japan. I expect the US economy to slow during the year and the core of Europe to grow by less than 2%. So the OECD as a whole is unlikely to achieve even 1% real growth this year unless Japan picks up.

The Dutch stock market underperformed its European peers in 1998 and 1999 will be a difficult one too. However, concepts of shareholder value are well established in the Netherlands and the small-cap sector looks like an outperformer.

Don't knock it. Warburg Dillon Read, the investment banking arm of UBS, comes out the clear winner in this January's poll of polls. Its virtue is consistency and coverage world-wide. While the US houses have their strengths at home, not one can consistently outperform WDR in every market. WDR may have benefited from the effects of the merger on poll results. But that doesn't detract from its commanding position in every major category: underwriting, trading and advising. It's only major weakness is mergers and acquisitions. Merrill Lynch, last year's number one, is let down by results in Euro-commercial paper, foreign exchange and risk management. Deutsche Bank continues to rise overall, but its weaknesses are equity research, Asian equity and advisory. Citigroup with its Salomon addition looks good on paper, but its low-scoring departments are Eurobonds, equities, and credit and equity research. Last year's second half shuffled the pack and we look forward to a wildly different pecking order next January. David Shirreff reports.

The euro may cause glitches in some areas of the capital markets, but probably relatively few in swaps or derivatives, thanks to some smart thinking last year, says Christopher Stoakes

It has taken almost two decades of reform but the People's Bank of China (PBOC) believes 1999 will at last see it join the ranks of the world's independent central banks. The big revamp, long-awaited and finally announced towards the end of last year, involves replacing the bank's provincial-level structures with nine regional entities which will answer only to Beijing.

Prospects for the beleagured Mexican banking sector have improved following an agreement on restructuring that many analysts feel goes beyond expectations