Argentina’s new president has the chance to help the country rejoin the international financial community. Will she take it? By Jason Mitchell in Buenos Aires.

Property derivatives have been tracking a slow, circuitous path toward the investment mainstream for almost 20 years. But with property market risk firmly on investors’ minds, they may finally be nearing their destination. Natasha de Teran investigates.

Ghana’s $750m 10-year Eurobond issue is another in a series of firsts from the republic and observers are hoping it heralds the blooming of Africa’s capital markets. Edward Russell-Walling reports.

IIF predicts record investment in emerging markets, while Standard Chartered warns over clashes with sovereign funds.

The success of Morocco’s BMCE Group could become a beacon for other African countries that are beginning to see growth and stability. Neil Sen reports.

Although biology is a well-known science, there is a lesser-known science with the a deceptively similar name: buyology. I created this science for banks to deal with the new world of ‘freakonomics’, where everyone is struggling to understand the methods to get customers buying and, in its purest form, buyology is defined as: the science of understanding business relationships.

How fast is the Islamic finance industry growing? The Banker attempts to answer this question with the launch of a new listing: Top 500 Islamic Financial Institutions. The pioneering role of the listing is to provide a benchmark for the future, which can be improved on for the good of the industry. Better disclosure is expected to flow from the publication of listings such as this as greater competition puts pressure on institutions to increase transparency in this area. Stephen Timewell and Joe DiVanna report.

Despite infrastructure issues and a lack of scenery, São Paulo has seen off local rivals and is emerging as the region’s pre-eminent financial centre. John Rumsey explains.

MiFID allows firms to set up in one EU country and do business anywhere regardless of the rules in each jurisdiction. Jules Stewart explains how this could attract new investment into Europe.

Gilles Denoyel, deputy CEO of HSBC France, details the advantages Paris offers over other locations including an internationally renowned school of maths and finance and its access to the Eurosystem.