The events triggered by the 2008 global financial crisis have ushered in a new wave of banking regulation in the United Arab Emirates and led to a greater focus on risk management. While UAE banks now boast some of the highest capitalisation levels in the world, the biggest challenge facing the sector as a whole is that of tightening liquidity.

The effects of eurozone deleveraging on central and eastern Europe should not be exaggerated, but certain countries look particularly exposed, especially in the Balkans. And the principles of European integration are under pressure.

Senegal’s banking system is one of Africa’s most competitive. Yet there is plenty of scope for its lenders to expand, thanks to fast economic growth and a large unbanked population. If this rise is managed carefully, Senegal will soon be firmly entrenched as the main banking hub in French-speaking west Africa.

As regulators seek to push more business onto exchanges and into central clearing, and to make derivatives and other markets more transparent and more resilient, the reform of the securities industry is well under way. What will regulations mean for businesses in practice?

The combined and cumulative effects of new regulations and a hostile market environment means banks are fighting to build both capital and liquidity. Many questions remain about banks' ability to do both, and the effects of doing either on economic growth.

Few will deny that bank boards were as culpable as their senior management in failing to spot the dangerous levels of risk building within the banks in the lead-up to the financial crisis. There is clear recognition that things need to change. But changing risk structures, and more importantly, risk cultures, is easier said than done.

Recent events show that the desire to put in place a global recovery and resolution regime to prevent the kind of government intervention that was required during the financial crisis is very much a work in progress. For banks it requires a tremendous amount of work and unprecedented transparency about their operations. For national regulators, it means forging agreements that bring together disparate insolvency regimes.

The convergence of regulatory, government and economic forces on the financial sector is unprecedented. If much of the detail has yet to be determined and substantive differences between national authorities still exist, one thing that is certain is that the financial services industry will look very different in a few years' time.