Phil Purcell should bow out of Morgan Stanley before the crisis of confidence does more damage.

The fortunes of the world economy over the next decade depend on what happens in the BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China. All with large populations and hungry for growth, they are already reshaping global commerce and they have the potential to change it even more. In this issue of The Banker we focus on all four. With international banks engrossed by China, our cover story looks at the best banks to buy and provides a Top 50 of Chinese banks. Potential buyers read on.

Enrique García, president and CEO of Corporación Andina de Fomento, sees social consensus as key to breathing new life into LatAm reform programmes.

Austria’s Raiffeisen International (RZB) is in exclusive takeover talks with Ukraine’s second-largest commercial bank, Aval. “We are in talks that we have agreed will be mutual until May,” said the chief executive of Raiffeisen International, Herbert Stepic. “We want to take over the bank entirely.”

New regulations for foreign banks in India have ended hopes of unrestrained growth in the expanding retail finance market. Foreign banks cannot acquire a local private bank except in the case of a weak bank, identified by the regulator. Additionally, local subsidiaries set up by foreign banks will not be able to open branches freely.
These restrictions will stay in place until 2009, when fuller deregulation is expected, including allowing market acquisitions of local private banks.

The Basel Committee has called on banks in 90 countries to carry out a fifth series of data studies to strengthen the models for the long-awaited implementation of the Basel II Capital Accord.

ARGENTINA could re-open its debt exchange to the 24% of investors who rejected it, once the country’s Congressional elections in October are over.

MasterCard and Visa have agreed on a shared common communications protocol enabling radio-frequency-based contactless payments at point of sale (PoS).

Hansabank Group has announced the successful completion of the acquisition of the Moscow-based Kvest bank.

The Italian banking market looks on the verge of being blasted open by twin bids from the Netherlands’ ABN AMRO and Spain’s BBVA.