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Retail banking is undergoing dramatic change. New delivery mechanisms such as the internet and aggressive new competitors such as supermarkets will eat into the easy profits previously enjoyed by retail banks. Can the big banks see off the threats? Rebecca Bream reports.

It was fun while it lasted but National Bank of Poland's unique approach to monetary control has been knocked on the head. Following this year's introduction of a new banking law, the central bank, headed by tough-minded Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, will no longer be able to take retail deposits.

It's boom time in Europe's private-equity business. But what if your client is so far behind the times that the term leveraged buy-out leaves a blank look on his face and he thinks high-yield bonds are a reference to 007's success rate with the ladies?

It has all the makings of a tax haven. It's somewhere people tend to go only on holiday, if at all; it has a population of under a million, and a capital city with just 25,000 inhabitants; it's stable, with a median family income in 1989 of over $28,000. It even has snow-capped mountains.

European banks are going to get much bigger - much bigger. In the quest for a knock-out market capitalization, Europe's bank leaders are ready to tie the knot with the unlikeliest of partners. The coming wave of mergers involving commercial banks will put the recent consolidation of investment banking in the shade. By Peter Lee.

"I went into my boss's office to ask if I could have a new computer. He said 'no and, by the way, you've been made redundant'." This was the rather typical experience of a junior equity analyst at Jardine Fleming in the new Hong Kong.

You could never get them together in one room at the same time. But, using the wonders of technology, Euromoney did the next best thing. We collected the views of seven top European bank chairmen and CEOs on the challenges facing the banking industry, and synthesized them into a virtual roundtable. Garry Evans moderated the discussion.

Weak and unreliable may be their image ­ but the best emerging-market banks are among the most robust in the world. Faced with hyperinflation, political instability and crippling credit crunches, they need to be tough to survive. Along the way they have turned into centres of excellence. Euromoney picked banks from widely differing regions to illustrate this winning streak. They are Brazil's Itau, Poland's Handlowy, Taiwan's Shanghai & Commercial Savings Bank, the UAE's Mashreq, South Africa's Investec and Ghana's Social Security Bank.

The secretive world of private international banking is set to change. Regulatory reform may be slow but it is coming. By Christopher Stoakes.

Deal: Buy-out of IPC

The financial world will feel better now Korea has got most of its foreign debts rolled over. The bankers who lent Korea the money in the first place declare they have solved the Korean crisis a mere momentary liquidity squeeze and the Asian crisis along with it. The world may believe them for a short while (though it's ironic it should grant credibility to bankers it was their stupidity that let the crisis happen).

Not a good start to the year for investment banks in eastern Europe. The advisory role for the $1 billion sell-off of most of Bulgaria's petrochemicals industry was up for grabs.