If the largest investment banks can emulate the structure of boutiques, they can adapt to the toughest market conditions.

Increasingly strict, region-specific regulation is making it increasingly complex, not to mention costly, for transaction bankers to operate on a global scale.

New York's Department for Financial Services' recent intervention in Standard Chartered's affairs in Iran were intended to show the city's might as a financial centre. However, this action may well have the opposite effect to that which was desired, and play directly into China's hands.

The benchmark needs to be reformed, not scrapped.

Allowing crippled banks to fudge their loan losses is not the way to deliver a healthy banking market.

A critical design flaw in the euro project meant that problems were inevitable.

With oil prices rising ever higher, interest in ethanol as a green fuel is growing, with the world's largest economies – Brazil, China and the US – already involved in production.

Latin America seems to have finally freed itself from its failing patterns of populism with impressive economic results, but Venezuela and, more evidently, Argentina remain reluctant to play ball.

The appointment of a US academic to head the world Bank instead of Nigeria's Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala shows how out of touch the institution is.

The rise of non-bank intermediaries in Europe is an opportunity, not a threat