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French banks are starting to restructure and consolidate. But they remain obsessed by the domestic market and are more concerned with market share than return on equity. All that will change with the euro. Rebecca Bream reports.

A falling stock market, a dearth of new deals and a faltering privatization programme: on the face of it the Egyptian securities market seems to be in trouble. But look deeper and the picture is not so bleak. Stock prices are holding up better than elsewhere and there is strong government commitment towards broadening and deepening Cairo's capital markets. Philip Moore reports.

Suddenly merger mania has reached Scandinavia's most insular banking market. But as Chris Wright reports, in Norway banks that want to merge have to make some strange moves.

Now we have entered the era of globalized markets, the potential for regulators, investors and companies to clash over national classification is huge. Take the case of the merging automobile firms Daimler and Chrysler versus the Standard&Poor's 500 index, which tracks the stock prices of the biggest US corporates.

Striking out for the sectors

Two approaches to expansion

Norway gets the urge to merge

With markets in turmoil and attention switching from returns to credit quality, new ways for assessing counterparties are needed. Our second emerging-market bank (Emba) ratings bring a temperature-taking approach to credit. While rating agencies pore over accounts and spend hours interviewing managers, we use the raw financial ratios that drive much of the ratings process. The results are always provocative. This year Emba highlights island paradises in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean where economies and banks have stayed clear of the fallout from global markets. Those seeking banking peace and pina coladas should read on. Brian Caplen reports.

Why did Isda beg the CFTC for more time? The International Swaps & Derivatives Association (Isda), with a long history of success in Washington, needed a few more days to frame a response last month to a movement from left field a petition from one of its associate members, the London Clearing House (LCH), to Isda's old arch-enemy, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Two decades and billions of dollars ago, Wall Street's most noble credit institution began to reinvent itself as a hybrid investment-cum-wholesale bank. For a while it seemed unstoppable. But this year JP Morgan stumbled - amid rumours of takeover. Parity with those bulge bracket firms still seems so near - and yet so far. Antony Currie reports.

A well-trodden path leads from Eton College through Oxford University to the City of London. Christopher Mackenzie followed it, adding McKinsey, JP Morgan and Schroders. That conjures up a picture of institutional orthodoxy, but Mackenzie says he has always felt somewhat outside the formidable British establishment.

In the leafy grounds of an 18th-century mansion in Kent, a month before Russia's August collapse, three dozen financial experts gather to rehearse a world financial meltdown. Forgoing the golf course, the lake, the tennis courts, gym and swimming pool, they settle down to pit their wits against the worst that disaster-monger David Shirreff can throw at them.