Investment banks are notoriously secretive about their earnings. They argue that to disclose more would give away competitive advantage. But aren’t shareholders and regulators entitled to a fuller picture of exactly how they make their money? As a first step in understanding the situation, in this month’s cover story we publish the best information available on the primary markets and look at the size of the secondary business.
This is the first time that The Banker has published this kind of data on investment banks. On commercial banks, however, we continue in this issue with our listing series that has become the industry standard, profiling the Top 100 Central & Eastern European banks on page 82 and the Top 200 Asian banks on page 117.
Turning to global economics, on page 38 editor-in-chief Stephen Timewell looks at how the combined reserves of China and the Gulf oil exporters will reach a massive $1350bn by the end of 2006 and asks how the money should be spent? Surely it’s time to invest these resources at home rather than using them to buy US treasury bonds.
Doing the right thing at home is also a theme of Chile’s President Ricardo Lagos in Viewpoint, but he argues that developing countries also need better access to overseas markets. Other countries covered in this issue are Iceland, Portugal, Turkey, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. We also include a special supplement on Russian finance and in our Islamic finance supplement we report on the Gulf states, Pakistan and Malaysia.
In our Asia section, we interview the prime minister of Timor-Leste, Dr Mari Alkatiri, on how his country should handle its oil revenues. And we profile the top 10 VIPs of business in China. In our Americas section, we look at how the Latin American banking system could become more stable and report on Banorte’s progress under chief executive Luis Peña Kegel.
John Varley, CEO of Barclays Bank, is profiled in Karina’s Kolumn and Jay Levine, joint CEO of RBS Greenwich Capital, is this month’s Agenda interview. In capital markets, Geraldine Lambe looks at how governments are plugging holes in their balance sheets; and in FX & derivatives, we explore the nascent market in property derivatives. In technology, Dan Barnes investigates algorithmic trading. In cash & securities services, we report on how corporates are starting to use Swift.
In retail, we look at wrangling over the EU’s consumer credit directive, at the row over interchange fees and Ahli United Bank’s CEO Adel El-Labban describes his retail strategy. We also have a supplement, Customer Centricity.
This issue of The Banker introduces some changes. RegRage (p152) is a sceptical look at the penchant for regulation in the banking industry; and the news section has now been divided into three parts: a news digest, a people section and a reports section. We hope these changes make The Banker an even better read.
