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Why should a UK bank become a tax collector for the Germans? That is the not-so-hidden agenda that international bondholders see behind a proposed EU directive on taxation of savings.

Propelled by a new breed of dynamic managers, Italy's banks are homing in on shareholder value. Consolidation is the battle cry, with three large mergers already announced. But choosing partners may prove the easy part. The real problems will start when the banks try to integrate. By James Rutter.

As the largest and most sophisticated capital market, the US remains the breeding ground for new products. Borrowers are demanding ever more flexible approaches to capital raising. A new wave of hybrid securities is emerging. James Rutter reports.

If a major bank based in euroland, such as ING or Deutsche Bank, had liquidity problems, which central bank, if any, would help with temporary funding? Would it be the European Central Bank or one at the national level?

Ace Greenberg, the 70-year-old chairman of Bear Stearns, is one of the biggest of Wall Street's Big Swinging Dicks: his 1997 pay cheque was comfortably over the $20 million mark.

In these acquisitive times, a bank needs to find a cost-efficient means of funding its ambitions. In the recent takeover squabble for Belgium's Générale de Banque, ABN Amro suggested that it would issue $1 billion worth of preferred stock in order to help fund its, ultimately unsuccessful, bid.

This autumn, after the annual IMF/World Bank meeting is over, the men and women responsible for raising money for six of the smaller states in the euro zone will hold a private meeting in Portugal to discuss ways of ensuring that their interests are given as much weight as those of the area's largest sovereign borrowers. They will try to build a coordinated approach on issues such as a euro-zone borrowing calendar and establishing common standards for primary dealers. In the longer term some bankers believe they will be able to plan joint bond issues for more than one country in the same way that German Länder have made joint borrowings.

Crossing capital market boundaries

When Nicholas Brady left the US treasury department at the end of the Bush administration, it was something of a no-brainer to figure out what to do next. Why not invest in the Latin American countries that his work in developing Brady bonds had helped get on the track to privatization? Starting up in 1994, his company, Darby Overseas Investors, raised $150 million for a private equity fund, one of the first of its kind for Latin America.

A wave of venture-capital deals financed byhigh-yield debt modelled on US practice has hit Europe. But as Christopher Stoakes explains, the legal intricacies of these dealsare often different in Europe and the US.

The leveraged buy-out market in Europe has doubled every year since the mid-1990s. Some market participants doubt that resources and expertise are sufficient to maintain this heady pace. Nevertheless business should continue booming as European monetary union takes effect and US firms are beginning to take an interest. Rebecca Bream reports.

"I must confess to you that at times the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] is misunderstood, misreported and statements are quoted out of context," says India's new finance minister Yashwant Sinha.