Last month’s proposal of marriage between MTFG and UFJ would create the largest bank in Japan, but it will only be positive news if the two businesses can be integrated, writes Geraldine Lambe
For the Japanese banking system, recuperation has been a long and painful process. It is only now, after more than a decade of despair, that Japan’s so-called mega-banks are ready to start performing as mega-banks should.

Oil has made Brunei a wealthy country. However, if the current economic growth is to be maintained, the tiny Asian sultanate requires a wider spread of industries contributing to its income. Simon Montlake reports.

New rules for trading in China’s derivatives market have provided a major attraction for foreign banks, which are preparing for the country to open up fully in 2007. Natasha de Teran reports.

A proposed policy on ownership rules for Indian private banks put out by the Indian central bank on July 2 has left bankers and investors dismayed.
To ensure that ownership and control of private banks is as diverse as possible, the Reserve Bank of India, the central bank, proposes to limit ownership by a single investor or corporate group to 10% of the paid-up capital of the bank.

After more than a decade wallowing in debt and seemingly unable to turn themselves around, Japan’s banks appear to be looking to new products and client segments to rejuvenate their business models and spread risk throughout the system. Geraldine Lambe reports.
For more than a decade, the Japanese banking system has suffered from painful indigestion – burdened by crippling levels of debt that the banks and the government were unable or unwilling to work out of the system. Whether we blame government policy, overly-cosy relationships between banks and borrowers or a lost decade of recession and deflation, Japan’s banks have for years failed to find a way to make themselves more profitable.

Last month’s proposal of marriage between MTFG and UFJ would create the largest bank in Japan, but it will only be positive news if the two businesses can be integrated, writes Geraldine Lambe
For the Japanese banking system, recuperation has been a long and painful process. It is only now, after more than a decade of despair, that Japan’s so-called mega-banks are ready to start performing as mega-banks should.

Professor Thomas A Pugel explains China’s forthcoming crisis, advisinIn almost any current discussion with government officials and executives of export-oriented companies in almost any country (except the US), the “China locomotive” phenomenon – the positive effects of the expanding Chinese economy – comes up. China’s growth probably will slow somewhat in the next year or two. But that will be nothing compared with the crisis likely to hit in the next decade.g policymakers to focus on the next decade.

The latest high in China’s repeated boom-to-bust story has spurred the government into corrective action with a new austerity campaignwhile the central bank is continuing with reform of the banking sector. Louise do Rosario reports from Shanghai.

HSBC’s purchase of a minority stake in a private Indian bank has been pruned to 14.6%, confirming that the move made last year by the Indian government to raise the foreign investment limit in private banks to 74% is not an open invitation to foreign banks.

Market players are once more eyeing up Indonesia’s banks, indicating a return of confidence but, as Tim Johnston reports from Jakarta, the long-term outlook is by no means certain.