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Seoul's aspirations to become Northeast Asia's financial hub have profound consequences for the country's fragmented securities industry. While none of the companies in the sector match up to international peers in quality or size, they don't want to merge either. Richard Morrow juggles with the conundrum this has created in South Korea.

GE is quite an old hand in Thailand's financial services industry, beginning operations in the auto finance sector in 1994. The group spent US$1 billion buying distressed car loans from local finance companies that went bankrupt in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. From that it has grown to the point that the consumer finance arm of the United States' conglomerate now offers one of the biggest auto finance operations in Asia outside of Japan, and it's also a major force in consumer finance, including credit cards, mortgages and personal loans.

Opportunities abound in an industry that caters to the risk-averse on one hand and the risk-hungry on the other. Chris Wright reports.

Best foreign exchange services in Indonesia, 2006

Idris Jala was born in 1958 as a member of the Kelabit tribe from the Bario highlands in Sarawak, Malaysia. In 1982, he graduated with a Bachelor Degree in development studies/management in University Sains Malaysia, winning the Bishen Kaur Award as the top student in development studies. He joined Sarawak Shell in the same year and, thanks to a Shell scholarship, earned a Masters degree in industrial relations from the University of Warwick, England, in 1986.

Hungry for growth, Indian drugs firms are looking to Europe as a haven of potential acquisition targets. Despite some cultural and business hurdles, more deals are likely, reports mergermarket.

India has long been a cultivator of fine business minds, but its freshest crop of innovators are also benefiting from a booming economy and the fruits of 15 years of fiscal reforms. Elliot Wilson meets seven ambition-fuelled firebrands hell bent on setting the world alight.

The longstanding leader of Indonesia's cigarette industry, Gudang Garam, is poised to be overhauled by arch rival Sampoerna. Its decline is not only down to a flawed corporate strategy but also a bleak growth outlook that could spell trouble for all three of the country's top cigarette makers. Ian Gill filters through the facts.

PT Lippo Karawaci is one of Indonesia's leading property developers, with a market capitalization of US$550 million. After developing three townships, including Lippo Karawaci west of Jakarta, the company is now focusing on building "vertical cities". Ian Gill reports.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is probably the broadest and most diverse foreign direct investor in Indonesia – which puts it high on the list of people to see for businesses looking to start, grow or diversify.

The mainland has traditionally viewed hedge funds with a cold disdain, fearful of the volatility and instability they often bring. But the voracious needs of the world's fastest growing economy are helping to defrost official opinion to the benefits of new capital and financial know-how. Elliot Wilson explores the gradual thaw in thinking.

In a new era of equity-market volatility, investment banks have wasted no time in offering more cautious equity structured products that meet the needs of worried investors. Richard Morrow looks at what's on offer.