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Investment bankers have nothing but plaudits for Gao Jian, the man who is turning China into one of the world's premier borrowers. A smallish, soft-spoken individual, Gao is the director general of the state debt-management department at the ministry of finance. He cuts a distinctive figure, sporting a shock of spiky hair, a worsted silk tie and chunky black, rectangular spectacles.

Some unusual rumblings have been heard from Singapore recently. In July the resignation was announced of Koh Beng Seng, deputy managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and reckoned to be the country's hard man of financial regulation. Then the prime minister persuaded him to withdraw his resignation and asked him to join a committee on banking deregulation. Behind the scenes, a furious debate is raging about the kind of financial centre Singapore should be.

Asian brokers: The old hands fight back

Intersec 250: Clash of the titans, once again

Emerging market banks: Turbulent times

Flexibility of staff, good systems and local knowledge will decide which banks will emerge as winners from Emu. John Leonard's tips include Deutsche Bank, ABN-Amro, Den Danske Bank, Barclays, Santander and Allied Irish.

If the terms for accessing Target - the proposed interbank payments system - are unfavourable, banks from countries outside Emu might decide to forget about the official euro markets and create a Euro-euro market.

The trend in Europe is for banking supervision to be split off from central banks. So, after Emu, who should have ultimate responsibility for the safety of the banking system: national central banks, the European Central Bank, or some new regulatory agency?

Asian brokers: The old hands fight back

Emu will have an enormous impact on European fund managers. That in turn will force global custodians to rethink their strategies. By Sue Kingman.

Mexico's recent elections proved beyond a shadow of doubt that the country is headed toward democracy - an outcome welcomed by investors even though the new political environment raises doubts about the direction of economic policy.

It's always helpful to find a scapegoat when things go wrong. Scapegoat hunters in Thailand think they have found one - or rather two. A pair of ceremonial wooden elephants were installed outside the ministry of finance, only a few weeks before the country was rocked by the resignation of two finance ministers and the collapse of the baht. Coincidence? Not according to those who remember that they used to be there, until they were removed in 1990 because of their allegedly inauspicious influence. Can we expect more violence to the baht until whoever put them there has the good sense to remove them? RM