With the retail market key, Malaysian banks are placing great emphasis on cross-selling while rolling out simple technologies that improve service. Dan Barnes reports.

With larger companies shifting to China, Filipino banks have been focusing on their retail clients as well as the mid-sized enterprise market. Dan Barnes reports.

With oil deposits discovered and tourism and FDI booming, Nick Freeman reports from Phnom Penh on the nascent development of Cambodia’s banking sector.

The demand for microcredit loans in India is estimated at about Rs600bn ($13.5bn), four-fifths of which is met by informal finance or money lenders. With about a third of its billion-strong population still living in poverty, India is one of the largest markets for microfinance.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Professor Mohammed Yunus talks to Kala Rao about the growing role of microfinance in the global economy, the challenges the sector faces moving from the informal to formal status, the need for regulation and the role that governments can play.

With EU accession and a strengthening economy, Romanians may be increasingly positive about their future, but tough challenges remain. Neil Tyler reports.

Competition for market share is tightening in Latvia’s banking sector. Some institutions are seeking organic growth at home, others are looking abroad for expansion opportunities. James Hydzik reports.

Spain’s 12-year economic boom may be slowing down but the government’s handling of the ETA problem remains the prime polarising issue. Karina Robinson reports.

Banesto is 89% owned by Santander and is run as a quasi-autonomous entity. Banesto’s small size relative to its parent ensures that it can be used as “a trial bank or a laboratory” for new technology and as a business model, which (if successful) can then be implemented across the group, chairman Ana Patricia Botín, told The Banker in a past interview.

Can greater efficiency gains be made by Spain’s cost-effective banks – and will their forays into Anglo-Saxon markets succeed? Karina Robinson reports from Madrid.