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One continent - one stock market?

Banks everywhere are muscling in on foreign exchange - just as the costs of building a forex business are rising and spreads are tightening. Europe's commercial banks are trying to replace business lost with the onset of Emu. US investment banks are bolting forex on to their core activities. They can't all be winners. But, as Antony Currie reports, they can make life harder for those already at the top. Euromoney's 20th annual foreign-exchange poll follows. Research by Rebecca Dobson.

Most commercial bankers acknowledge the illiquid loan problem. But not many of them are freeing their loan book with loan sales, credit derivatives, and collateralized loan obligations - yet. It's a new game. But a handful of banks have sipped from the holy grail, and are pressing the regulators to change the Basle capital requirements. Antony Currie reports.

Visitors to this year's Asian Development Bank meeting in Geneva were less than impressed by the presentation given by the Indonesian contingent. While slick and technical, the central bank's plans did not address the critical issues still facing the country and by extension the region. As Asian finance ministers admitted in private, the real economy has ground to a halt. Trade finance has dried up and foreign banks will not accept letters of credit or guarantees from Indonesian banks for imports. In the absence of a multilateral system to overcome this problem, the band-aid of bilaterals is now being used. It is not enough.

The fans love them both. Weill, the deal maker, is adored by Travelers' employees who hold big stakes in the company. Meanwhile Reed has kept his iron grip on Citibank by juggling his managers and mastering detail. The culture of the two companies is as different as the style of their CEOs. But the combination could be spectacular - if they can make it work. Peter Lee takes in the show.

Richard Strang has spent almost all his 20-year City career at Morgan Grenfell (latterly Deutsche Morgan Grenfell), and appears, in demeanour at least, a very English banker. A tall, commanding presence, opera-loving Strang is known for his intense loyalty to his clients, for his unusual capacity for hard work and for tempering his politeness with determined persistence.

After decades of steady growth for six big banks, the Canadian banking sector is fast consolidating. The old certainties have been undermined by the announcements of mergers between Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of Montreal in January and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Toronto Dominion Bank in April. The rush to merge follows a global trend fuelled by the need to cope with increased competition, and was stimulated by the BankAmerica/NationsBank merger in the US. But unlike their US counterparts, RBC/BMO and CIBC/TD have to run the gauntlet of rigorous banking regulation, entrenched political conventions and hostile popular opinion.

Does Stephen O'Sullivan know something we don't? The former head of research at MC Securities in London has decided to move to Moscow to join the more discreet United Financial Group (UFG), a majority Russian-owned investment bank. The leading oil and gas analyst in the Russian market admits that the sale of MC Securities' Russian business (United City Bank) to Flemings has triggered his decision.

Having so long been the whipping-boy of its big cousin in London, the German futures exchange (Deutsche Terminbörse - DTB) can be forgiven for taking a full-page advertisement in the Financial Times in March to trumpet its victory.

When they were winning, the traders of Garantia, Brazil's leading investment bank, were formidable masters of the universe, confident and overbearing. Now they are down - after substantial losses last year - no-one in Sao Paulo feels much pity. But beneath the emotions lie more serious issues: can the bank founded 27 years ago by former tennis champion Jorge Paulo Lemann survive independently? Will it be bought by an international house? If so, what will happen to its daring traders? Brian Caplen reports.

Leaders of Africa's new deal