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In the first two months of 1997 an economic state of emergency was announced in Colombia and the currency tumbled. Then, barely a week after the emergency was over, a blow-out $1 billion global bond was issued that catapulted the country out of the second division of emerging markets into the ranks of investment-grade borrowers.

India's feeble coalition government is taking bold steps to reform its debt market. Just four months after opening up domestic corporate debt to foreign investors, it has let them into the government bond market.

Hoping to increase the transparency and execution quality of a marketplace long shrouded in controversy and scandal, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) implemented several new rules in the over-the-counter equity market known as Nasdaq. Although the changes have been in the works for several years, last year's Justice Department price-fixing case against 24 major Nasdaq market makers pushed the SEC to act this January. Apparently unrepentant about the disrepute surrounding their market, leading firms are already grumbling about the new rules.

For many cynics in the securities industry, the upcoming introduction of the euro had only one real benefit. The enormous cost of converting systems to the new single European currency could be used as timely camouflage to correct the firm's information technology cock-ups of the past.

You won't see these options being traded on the floor at Liffe, but Shahram Nikpour at Bossard Consultants thinks that options on information technology firms are already hot property.

In his 18 months running the World Bank, James Wolfensohn has earned a reputation as something of a straight talker. Feeling the heat is Chilean electric utility Endesa. Wolfensohn has accused it of failing to fulfil environmental obligations that were part of an IFC loan for a hydroelectric plant on the Bio Bio river, 400 kilometres south of Santiago.

The European Monetary Institute has finally confirmed the worst fears of supporters of European monetary union. At the start of a meeting with clients, Paul Mercier, head of financial markets at the EMI, said to them: "I want to be as open as I possibly can there will be a delay in monetary union."

Something very strange is happening with the world economy.

Death of a bank

Bonds are developing to suit the most sophisticated global investor. Sovereign debt issuance is increasing in emerging markets, European bond markets are diverging with the approach of monetary union, and the EIB's new further-issue clause could give debt-trading in euros huge liquidity. James Featherstone reports, starting with emerging markets

Country Risk: Switzerland takes a tumble