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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

Country Risk: Switzerland takes a tumble

Investors have piled into Czech koruna Eurobonds since they were first issued last year. Issuers too have continued to be attracted by favourable swap opportunities. Can the interest be sustained or is the vaunted model market for central and eastern Europe flashy but short of take-off power? Catherine Garner reports.

German patriots are already bemoaning the abolition of the Deutschmark after European monetary union; they should be concerned about the demise of the German capital market too. By Laura Covill

January's dreadful German unemployment figure is the most politically significant euro event since the Dublin summit. Chancellor Kohl was always seen to be more powerful from abroad than he was in reality at home. He is now seen as a chancellor with a great plan for European integration and no strategy for German economic rejuvenation.

The drift from Frankfurt to London gets ever stronger at Deutsche Bank. The January issue of staff magazine International Forum chalked up one further milestone in the exodus when it announced it too has moved from the Finanzplatz.