Acquisitions by both private and state-owned banks in Russia are gradually concentrating the top end of the banking sector, but the long tail of closely held and regional banks remains.

Banks are no longer just competing with each other, they are also at war with a growing number of retailers and innovative start-ups that employ social media tactics to offer sought-after services. The Banker brought together a panel of banking experts to discuss the issues. This round table was sponsored by Cisco, but independently written and edited.

The merger of two stock exchanges and work to bring operations into line with international standards gives Moscow the potential to claw back Russian equity offerings from other markets.

The eurozone's troubles of the past few years have meant that the headlines have been dominated by those countries deemed likely to leave the currency union. However, there are EU members that still wish to sign up to euro membership. The question is, why?

As the only EU member country to record positive growth at the height of the global financial crisis, and one of the few to suffer no casualties in its banking sector, Poland serves as a good example of how stable monetary policy combined with sound financial sector supervision can make for a robust and crisis-proof economy.

Romania's entrance into the EU was met not with the domestic economic development many had predicted, but with a global recession, which sent the country's economy into decline and severely narrowed its banking sector's avenues of growth. Now, the country must overcome a series of challenges if it is to achieve the economic maturity it had envisaged.

With balance sheet clean-ups continuing in Europe and the US, banks in emerging markets have grabbed the opportunity to forge stronger relationships with local commodity producers.