India's leading exchange, the NSE, faces new competition as the MCX-SX plans to enter the equities trading arena. Yet the battle is broadly welcomed by the country's banking industry, which anticipates it will bring the product innovation needed to strengthen the sector on a global level. Writer Rekha Menon
Asia-Pacific
Will other banks follow Kookmin?
July 7, 2009South Korea's Kookmin bank issued the first covered bond out of an emerging market earlier this year. It was lapped up by investors although its pricing has been questioned. But more importantly, is it the first of many other emerging market banks to look to covered bond investors for funding? Writer Joanne Hart
What went right for South Korea
July 7, 2009In a speech at the IIF Spring Membership Meeting in Beijing in June, South Korean prime minister Han Seung-soo explained how the lessons learned from the Asian crisis of 1997 has helped his country come through the current recession in better shape than most.
World
/ Asia-Pacific
/ Japan
Split personalities
June 4, 2009The role of the Development Bank of Japan in seeing the country through its export crisis is mired in confusion as it is caught between its public past and private future. However, the state-owned Japan Bank for International Co-operation is having no such problems in bailing out the overseas operations of Japanese exporters. Writer Charles Smith in Tokyo
World
/ Asia-Pacific
/ Japan
Sadeq Sayeed
June 4, 2009The CEO of Nomura for the EMEA region has taken the Japanese bank through its acquisition of Lehman Brothers' EMEA business and is determined to get maximum gains from the deal. Writer Geraldine Lambe
Sri Lanka waits for the smoke to clear
June 4, 2009As Sri Lanka's civil war ends, domestic and global banks are eyeing potential stable investments in a country that has until now attracted a great deal of caution from financiers as a consequence of its long-running conflict. Writer Eric Ellis in Colombo