The Middle East is not wholly comprised of Iraq. While geographically obvious, the economic consequences of this fact can be easily missed. Bahrain and Qatar, two Gulf states that might have been overwhelmed by the Iraq crisis, are in fact booming. Editor-in-chief Stephen Timewell visited both countries in May and filed reports headlined: “Bahrain’s roaring success” and “Qatar builds the dream”.

The Banker’s mission is to find business opportunity everywhere but especially in regions where, going by newspaper reports, none would appear to exist. In Mexico, for example, there is the usual intrigue ahead of presidential elections in 2006. The banks are running into politics but are still earning good profits, as we report.

In a similar vein Vietnam has a reputation for bureaucracy and government control but new reforms there are producing growth of 7.5%.

In our special report on Africa, produced to coincide with the African Development Bank’s 2004 meeting in Kampala, our writers explore the positive trends of improved corporate governance and institution building in certain parts of that continent. Only in very few places in the world are conditions so dire that no opportunities exist.

Our cover story this month looks at European banks buying into American consolidation and weighs up whether they are bringing in superior expertise or will lose their shirts.

In capital markets we interview Johnny Cameron, CEO of Royal Bank of Scotland’s Corporate Banking and Financial Markets – one of those European banks making waves in the US. Our team of the month comes from SG’s corporate and investment banking group for their recent Tier 1 bond issue for Agence Française de Développement. Other topics explored are the prospects for banks to run successful private equity operations and how the search for yield is taking investors further into mezzanine and subordinate asset-backed securities. Our supplement looks at Financial Markets Strategies for Corporates.

In FX and treasury we look at firms setting up in-house banks and in global securities services we look at competition between depositories and custodian and agent banks. In the Asia section we report on the revolution that has taken place in the Indian securities markets.

In retail we interview Andreas Treichl, CEO of Erste Bank, and our Portugal supplement looks at how Millennium BCP (formerly Banco Comercial Português) has recovered from setbacks. In technology, Simpay’s CEO Tim Jones looks at the future direction of the payments industry.

Karina’s Kolumn profiles Intesa CEO Corrado Passera despite the best efforts of Alitalia to prevent it.

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