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Top 100 Arab Banks: Waiting for the after-shock

Who's best at it? And which houses in the next few years will challenge those at the top? It means covering sectors not countries, and convincing 40 big fund managers that you have better information. Easy. Antony Currie reports.

Banks in the Middle East and North Africa generally performed well in 1997 despite hits in the second half from falling oil prices and Asian economic turmoil. Even where oil economies have successfully diversified, though, 1998 looks like being a tougher prospect. Banks in the region will therefore need to look harder at consolidation and cost-cutting. Andrew Beikos and Anthony Christofides report.

Scavengers and scratchers of value

Getting ready for a shake-up

On a lighter note, we say goodbye for the time being to our resident US banker, Herbie. Herbie first started writing home to Mom in 1969. A firm believer that friends are God's apology for relations, he has spent the last 28 years based in London, as far from his mother as possible, though every faithful month his letters home have kept her, and you, abreast of the latest financial happenings. In the process he has chronicled, mocked and satirized most of the key events in the life of the modern capital markets.

Before he left Turkey for the US to study civil engineering at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Husnu Ozyegin bought a notebook and started keeping his accounts.

Different ways to skin a cat

Different ways to skin a cat

Amidst all their other problems, just how well prepared are Japanese financial institutions for the millennium computer bug? After more than a year of debate and the odd testy exchange between banking officials and information officers across the Pacific some real evidence could soon be at hand.

It finally happened. After lurching from crisis to crisis - muddling through with partial reforms and quick fixes - Russia has finally crashed out of orbit. So who is to blame? Ronan Lyons looks at the key actors in the drama. Who are the seven oligarchs and were they behind the decision to devalue? What was really happening in the governments of Chernomyrdin and Kiriyenko? And what was the role of the IMF and western investors?

Economists and academics will long ponder why east Asia's currencies have depreciated so much. Euromoney thinks it may have found the answer - perhaps each country is trying to outdo the others for the title of cheapest currency in Asia.