DEUTSCHE KREDIT BÖRSE (DKB), a new exchange enabling banks and other financial institutions to trade single corporate loans so that they can better spread credit risk, has gone live in Germany.

ABN AMRO’s DIRECT custody, securities clearing and fund services businesses in selected European and Asian markets are to be purchased by Citigroup. Upon completion, these ABN AMRO businesses will join the Global Transaction Services unit (GTS) in Citigroup’s Global Corporate and Investment Banking Group.

BRAZIL’S LONGEST EVER banking strike came to an end last month, four weeks after it commenced, as workers heeded their union bosses’ call to return to their jobs. Nearly half of the country’s 400,000 bank employees had walked off the job on September 15, when Brazil’s banks refused to give them a 25% salary increase.

CHUCK PRINCE, CHIEF executive of Citigroup, placed his own personal stamp on the world’s largest banking group with the ousting of three senior executives, including the chairman of Citigroup International, Sir Deryck Maughan, following regulatory problems in Japan.

As emerging markets enjoy today’s benign global environment, it is worth remembering that whereas lightning may seldom strike twice in the same place, the same cannot be said for international debt crises. Countries that default once on their external debts typically go on to do so again and again.

Recently I was looking at the mountain of stuffed toys that my two young children have and was comparing this to the lone, high-cost teddy bear I had when I was the same age in the 1960s. The mountain of stuffed, “made in China” toys of today probably, collectively, did not cost as much as that teddy of yore. Who will make the stuffed toys 40 years from now when the Chinese economy evolves into a higher wage economy than it is today?

South Africa’s market potential lies in extending services to poorer, unbanked areas, so how will a foreign bank fair in this environment?

China is finding it feet and the right political tone for dealing with Hong Kong as the region’s economic fortunes ascend.

A diplomatic approach is needed when the integrity of the banking industry is on the line.