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Any American above a certain age working in finance remembers The Bankers, Martin Mayer's 1975 bestseller. But since then Mayer has become something of a cause célèbre of all things bank-related. Then he became chairman of a New York school board.

The culture that powers HongkongBank

Operation "Chow-mien" sees Ingersoll and Komarovsky at the Club Hot Lips and points east, on a quest vital to the bottom line.

While Deutsche Bank officials worry about alleged "superwoman" Nicola Horlick's next move, a senior Deutsche man in Hong Kong is more worried about a genuine superwoman: his own wife.

Asia's two leading financial centres, Hong Kong and Singapore, are competing as gateways to the region. They're also learning to cooperate to keep their markets clean. But maybe they're acting too tough. Some bankers fault Singapore's Monetary Authority for responding more like the Delphic oracle than a regulator. Even Hong Kong's once laissez faire regime is getting over-paternalistic, say others, although the local vice of "rat trading" is not quite dead. David Shirreff reports.

Malaysia's central bank is a major force behind banking consolidation. Though cautious about repeating past mistakes, it is taking measures to ensure that Malaysian institutions can compete regionally and fend off foreign competition at home. The country's bankers have not been backward in acting on the pressure from above. Maggie Ford reports.

The culture that powers HongkongBank

Five Go To Swapland won't be the title of Carolyn Jackson's forthcoming novel, but according to her latest forecast it will be about "a bunch of guys having fun during the formative years of the swap market".

Kevin Keegan, manager of super-glamorous football team Newcastle United, was forced to resign in January, not by outraged fans or lacklustre performance, but by a new force in the game: investment bankers. Keegan had quietly agreed with his board to quit in May. However, Newcastle was preparing a stock exchange flotation and its bankers insisted the information had to be in the prospectus. Such a bombshell, it was realized, would have destabilized the float. Keegan took an early bath.

Floating-rate notes reign supreme in Asia. Whatever kind of product gets issued, the chances are it will be swapped back into FRNs ­ the favoured investment of the region's banks. They show no sign of changing their tastes and the successful development of fixed income will require a new class of investor. Brian Caplen reports on this and other challenges to the Asian bond market.

Headhunters had a busy time in 1996. Most noticeable were the recruitment sprees at UBS and Deutsche Morgan Grenfell. Other banks such as BZW and Chase were also restructuring - and a number of well-known people passed through the revolving doors for a variety of reasons at firms such as Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. By Philip Eade

"Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young." So Dr Johnson had it. In the case of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), an institution founded by Scots and still governed by one, it has grown to be the world's most profitable financial group. The unique international officer culture that has driven it –­ young men caught young, trained up, messed together, posted, reposted, in the bank for life and rarely back in the UK ­ will have to change, but it's bending and adapting rather than breaking. Steven Irvine reports on its fitness for the 21st century.