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Leif Edvinsson, Skandia's vice president and corporate director of intellectual capital has won this year's Brain Trust Brain of the Year Award for his "new age" accounting methods. As world's leading expert on intellectual capital he managed to beat Bill Gates and Paul McCartney to the honour, which the Brain Trust describes as recognition of "superlative mental achievement".

Issuer: investment banks

Do you expect there to be further consolidation in the world banking industry?

When president Ernesto Zedillo appointed his finance secretary, Guillermo Ortiz, to head the central bank for the next six years, tongues wagged. In Mexico, political pundits speculated endlessly about the reasons Zedillo would overlook the most obvious choice for the position, the eminently qualified central bank vice governor Francisco Gill Diaz, and sacrifice the most vital member of his cabinet.

The tough route to quality

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.

Bankers are a competitive bunch, though competing to give money away seems an unusual form of behaviour.

Brazil's investment banks are engaged in their own distribution build-up a mini-version of the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Salomon Smith Barney megamergers in the US. Banco Bozano Simonsen has purchased the retail bank Meridional in a privatization auction and Banco Pactual has bought Sistema, a Sao Paulo commercial bank which ran into trouble. Both banks say they are looking to make further purchases.

First he sat in the back seat, then he had his foot on the brake, now he's got one hand on the steering wheel! Is there no end to the risk manager's advancement into every aspect of risk-taking in a financial firm? Next he'll be right there in the driving seat, with traders, salesmen, corporate financiers and chief financial officers doing his bidding. So, is the risk manager turning into something else? By David Shirreff

The tough route to quality

A few decades from now, a loan syndication desk will come up with a novel way of conducting its business: it will print and distribute documents on paper. Clients will be impressed with this innovative approach. They will point to improved efficiency, potential cost savings, as well as the exotic feel of paper on flesh. A few of the market's more aged participants will have a sense of déjà vu.

Aad Jacobs, head of ING, enjoys a ritual on his journey to the bank's headquarters in Amsterdam each morning. He reads the paper, starting with the sports pages then turns to the business pages to see which bank ING is supposed to be buying that day. Some of the rumours, he says, leave him dumbfounded. But they continue to crop up for a good reason. ING has often expressed its wish to find a second home in Europe outside the Netherlands. Its executives are convinced that the single currency will lead to a single European market in banking services and are keen to position themselves accordingly and not fall into the trap of being over-dependent on a Netherlands market which itself may be attacked by new foreign competitors.