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Watch out! A hit squad of World Bank auditors could be making a surprise visit to a project near you. This is the Bank's first serious attempt, led by president James Wolfensohn, to address corruption head on. But nailing the culprits ­ some of them dictators and governments ­ is not so easy. By Michelle Celarier

Komarovsky and Ingersoll sit at the feet of Wall Street's self-styled literary genius

Which banks do users of the capital markets like best? And which are most respected by their peers? Our annual poll has the answers. Research by Rebecca Dobson.

On his first day as treasurer of the World Bank ­ March 1 this year Gary Perlin was winding up a trip to China, the bank's biggest borrower. By contrast, the first overseas trip of his predecessor Jessica Einhorn (now promoted to managing director) was to Japan, the biggest investor in the bank's bonds.

The top 100 Arab banks

by David Roche

The Philippine government is recruiting the private sector to develop and upgrade the country's infrastructure. But how will the private sector raise the financing it needs on the international capital markets? By Maggie Ford

Despite measures by some governments to curb expenditure, withdeflationary effects on economic growth, the health of Arab banks remains good.Banks from the Gulf Cooperation Council states, particularly Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, continue to dominate the top 100 rankings. Martin Gallagher and Andrew Ioannou analyze the latest results.

The Euromoney country risk assessment uses nine categories that fall into three broad groups: analytical indicators, credit indicators and market indicators. The weighted scores are calculated as follows: the highest score in each category receives the full mark for the weighting; the lowest receives zero. In between, figures are calculated according to the formula: Final score = weighting/(maximum score minimumscore) x (score minimum score). The country risk ranking shows only the final scores after weighting.

Brazil's finances are being taken in hand. But fiscal reform depends on constitutional changes, and so far president Cardoso hasn't fulfilled any of his promises. The team implementing the Real Plan for recovery believes some measures can be taken without a battle in congress, but these ideas are still on paper. Although inflation is down, external investment is up and privatization has sped up, the markets will give Brazil only so long. Danielle Robinson reports

Edson Mitchell's bold attempt to turn Deutsche Morgan Grenfell (DMG) into a world-beating bond house has made headlines in the past year. He has employed about 500 new staff -­ including many from his old firm, Merrill Lynch -­ in little more than 12 months. But until now Mitchell has shied away from talking publicly about his plans. Here, for the first time, he reveals what his aims are -­ and how he's going about achieving them. Mitchell spoke to Garry Evans

Managing director and head of fixed-income trading and sales, West Merchant Bank Limited