International rating agencies have reacted with mixed feelings to new improvements made to the Pfandbrief, Germany’s well known investment-gradecovered bond.

Citigroup’s agreement to purchase KorAm Bank in late February has sparked a round of consolidation, reflecting a keen interest by foreign investors in South Korea’s retail banking sector, the third-largest in Asia after Japan and China.

Profits at Bahrain’s locally incorporated banks more than doubled during 2003, compared with 2002.

As South Africa celebrates 10 years of democracy, Roelf Meyer looks back at the progress made since apartheid was ended and forward to the challenges ahead.

Are banks’ IT systems providing value or are they effectively brain dead? This month our technology editor, Parveen Bansal, considers how little banks get back from their huge investment in IT and what can be done to improve it. Financial sector reform is also high on the agenda of Asian Development Bank president Tadao Chino who insists it is key to sustaining high growth across the region. And in Malaysia, Maybank’s chief executive, Amirsham Aziz, discusses corruption, Havana nightclubs and the upcoming elections.

Outsourcing between banks is the latest development in a trend that politics is unlikely to arrest.

Imminent changes in capital markets and insurance legislation will give the kingdom’s banks the chance to expand their capabilities.

Europe and the US banking systems may have money to spare – but banks appear to have learned not to merge just for the sake of size.

Concerns remain that double-counting of assets is a disaster waiting to happen.

Mervyn Davies, group chief executive of Standard Chartered, shares his vision of Asia with The Banker.