Having shed two of its assets – the exchanges of Budapest and Ljubljana – the CEE Stock Exchange Group, with owner Vienna Stock Exchange at the helm, is steering a new strategic course. Its aim, as Stefanie Linhardt reports, is to become a leading service provider for central and eastern Europe's exchanges. 

As the Swiss National Bank removed its cap against the euro, the risk of borrowing in foreign currencies was made clear, as countries that had been busily borrowing in the Swiss franc reeled at the impact of its sudden appreciation. 

The European Central Bank has helped assuage fears of an imminent eurozone breakup, but sovereign, supranational and agency debt management officials must still contend with ratings downgrades and difficult political and fiscal situations in a number of countries. The Banker hears from a range of EU issuers both inside and outside the eurozone.

Erste Bank Group’s CIO and head of group organisation and IT, Christian Gosch, explains how the bank has modernised and standardised its core banking networks to optimise its operating model across central and eastern Europe

Windows for bond issuance were fleeting during the second quarter of 2012, but the Barclays public sector team opted to jump in with five tranches of debt on one day.

Austria's government, driven an agenda to ensure that tax-payers do not pay for the financial crisis, which has seen it implement strict measures to fast-track compliance with Basel III rules, appears to show no sign of relenting in its dealings with the country's embattled banks.

UniCredit, Erste and Raiffeisen between them own significant market share across central and eastern Europe, but their approaches to turning local presence into international investment banking have varied.