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What will futures exchanges be like in the next millennium? As electronic markets bring end-users ever closer, will we need them at all? Exchanges could eventually be replaced by giant clearing houses. But traditionalists say there will always be a demand for the intensity of the trading pit, and none argue with more passion than Pat Catania. David Shirreff reports.

Awards of Excellence

Awards of Excellence

Captain Euro to rescue Europe's ailing identity! That's the hope anyway. Captain Euro, a euro-currency cartoon hero, and his attractive female partner Europa were launched by Twelve Stars Communications on the internet last month (www.captain-euro.com).

Can Europe produce a top-tier global investment bank? The British have proved they can't. BZW and NatWest Markets were disasters and though they have spawned successful offshoots, Barclays Capital and Greenwich NatWest are to British investment banking what Greg Rusedski is to British tennis - technically British, actually North American. Bob Diamond and Tom Kalaris are ex-CSFB and JP Morgan respectively, and NatWest bought Chip Kruger and Gary Holloway's Greenwich Capital whole.

A reserved young man in a business better known for exuberant individuality, Nicolas Rohatyn perfectly embodies the JP Morgan of the late 1990s.

The emerging-market crisis will roll on, mutating like a virus as it kills investor dreams. Sure, Latin America's flaws are not those of Asia. But they're deep enough for the region to get whacked.

The tequila crisis, Asian fallout, money laundering charges - Mexican bankers walk a tortured road. Nor is there any sign of reprieve. Fobaproa, the vehicle that bailed out the country's banks, is about to undergo a public audit. The political opposition is demanding blood for what they see as the mishandling of the crisis. Bankers are again in the firing line. Brian Caplen reports.

It's a sign of the times when a bank gives up a banking licence to a department store and buys a life insurer. But that's what ING Barings has done in Chile. Focused on corporate finance, ING Barings decided it didn't need a banking licence and approached local retailer Falabella about a deal.

Was Goldman sleeping, did its client just not listen, or was Energy Group simply too clever? After a year of dithering, PacifiCorp let its UK target slip into Texan hands. The only thing that didn't fall through the cracks was the fees for Goldman and the other investment banks. Antony Currie reports.

June 17 1998 is a date that will stick in the mind of Bob Diamond for a while. Not because his speech, '"Give me credit baby", A European bank's perspective on the importance of credit research', went down so well at Euromoney's latest Global Borrowers and Investors Forum - though his was one of the wittier and more provocative offerings. No, the chief executive of Barclays Capital is more likely to remember his debut as a catwalk model at his firm's well-attended party at London's trendiest new hotel, the Hempel.

Naming a woman to a senior management position of a Japanese brokerage would have been unthinkable in Japan's securities industry as recently as 10 years ago. Of course, back then Japanese brokerages were raking in commissions from Japan's overheating equities market.