The 2006 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) by Transparency International (TI), surveying perceptions of public sector corruption in 163 countries, points to a strong correlation between corruption and poverty, with a concentration of impoverished states at the bottom of the ranking.
“Despite a decade of progress in establishing anti-corruption laws and regulations, these results indicate that much remains to be done before we see meaningful improvements in the lives of the world’s poorest citizens.”
In an index that scores countries on scale from zero to 10, almost three-quarters of the countries in the CPI score below five (including all low-income countries and all but two African states) indicating that most countries in the world face serious perceived levels of domestic corruption. Seventy-one countries – nearly half – score below three, indicating that corruption is perceived as rampant. Haiti has the lowest score at 1.8; Guinea, Iraq and Myanmar share the penultimate slot, each with a score of 1.9. Finland, Iceland and New Zealand share the top score of 9.6.
Countries with a significant worsening in perceived levels of corruption include: Brazil, Cuba, Israel, Jordan, Laos, Seychelles, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia and the US. Countries with a significant improvement in perceived levels of corruption include: Algeria, Czech Republic, India, Japan, Latvia, Lebanon, Mauritius, Paraguay, Slovenia, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uruguay.
ARMSTRONG REPORT:
COMPENSATION IN EUROPEAN INVESTMENT BANKING
The annual Armstrong report on front-office compensation in European investment banking concludes that the mood is buoyant in most sectors, based on rebounding primary and secondary equity markets, resilient debt markets, record-breaking levels of mergers and acquisition activity and bonus hopes.
Armstrong International, a leading executive search firm, finds that 2006 will see significant payouts in most areas. This will, however, be accompanied by a degree of differentiation at all levels. Key performers in high margin growth areas are likely to see the top end of the 10%-30% forecasted bonus growth this year, while under-performers will be disappointed.
The major themes this year are retention of key staff, combined with a drive to“upgrade” the quality of teams, in order to capitalise on markets expected to remain favourable into the first half of 2007. Beyond that point there is considerable uncertainty around whether fixed income can continue to perform, with most cyclical growth drivers steadily disappearing. The M&A pipeline for 2007 is viewed as strong, but it is not clear how far into next year this will be the case.
The report reads: “Banks are looking for profitability and quality of revenues, and those best able to push the “cross-product” agenda [traditional vanilla combined with more complex structured products marketed to the same clients] will be highly rewarded.
“The challenge in capital markets is the continued commoditisation of simpler products and a drive towards developing more complex and higher margin products.”
