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A special report prepared by the GiroCredit Bank Group

Having arrived from Merrill Lynch four years ago to join a "European bank", she was said to be upset by her feeling of déjà vu.

The banking sector has been at the leading edge of economic reforms throughout the economies of central Europe. For most of the more developed markets, striving to join the European Union has given them a focus to get their banking sectors in order, and fast. The majority of countries in the region have created sound legislative frameworks based on international banking principles and double-tier banking systems around the core of a broadly independent central bank. However, the hard work is by no means over. The difficult task has been to make sure that the banks that have been created are able to survive and operate according to commercial principles and, ultimately, to stand on their own feet.

A special report by Euromoney

It's a jungle out here, so truly I may just as well be in the office, but Ken signals me to find a few days and come out to join him, he is here in Zimbabwe on one of the overseas fact-finding visits which he sets up whenever he runs low on duty free cheroots, and now it seems he needs advice, or rather he has more advice than he requires but he wants mine.

Mortgages issued in 1994 and 1995 are showing higher rates of default than anyone had previously suspected.

Julian Johnson, downing a pint of beer as part of his training, says going to the magnetic North Pole will make a change from sitting in a windowless basement trading US government bonds. The manager of the London office of Aubrey G Lanston, a subsidiary of Industrial Bank of Japan, says the six-week trek, beginning in April, will be aided by two skidoo vehicles, three airborne food drops, and the expertise of the team leader, David Hempleman Adams, one of the UK's foremost experts on Arctic expeditions.

How can investors square their desire to invest in the newest emerging markets with the need to follow the legal requirements for prudential custody arrangements? By Christopher Stoakes.

I've said it before in this column: the 1999 date for European monetary union will be postponed. I'm saying it again because the chorus of Europe's politicians proclaiming that EMU will happen on time is deafening. But I think postponement will happen, by common agreement of the 15 member states, probably before the end of this year.

Jean-Claude Komarovsky, to get Black Knight's major shareholder off his back, goes to the fountainhead of retail distribution - Mrs Watanabe's playschool in deepest Japan.

The Japanese government bond market is laughably old-fashioned and inefficient. Settlement, for example, takes place only on dates ending in five or zero - a practice derived from the 19th-century rice market. At last, the Ministry of Finance is looking at wide-ranging reforms. With combined new bond issues for FY1995 and 1996 expected to reach almost ¥100 trillion, it has little choice. Andrew Horvat reports.

New supply forces in the capital market The second-tier and other lesser issuers are driving the market. Albert Smith reports.