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Banks are opting for the services of collecting agencies rather than the courts in an effort to claw back some of their money from debtors. By Tim LeeMaster

Take boundless energy, an appetite for competition and sheer brain power and you have the basic ingredients for Asiamoney's Deals of the Year.

Deutsche Asset Management opened its doors to two new fund managers in January, beefing up its regional equity team. Ernie Tam joins Deutsche after a seven-year spell as a fund manager at Baring Asset Management. Tam will work in Korean, Japanese, Indonesian and Thai equity investments. The bank also welcomes Amy Low, who returns to the Singapore office after a three-year stint in the firm's London headquarters. She will work with the Singapore team and advise on Malaysia. In London, Low worked with the global banking sector team, where she selected Asian stocks for the firm's Global Emerging Market Alpha Fund.

How will the economy cope with the twin threat of rising interest rates and the bloated Australian dollar? Pauline Loong reports.

The former Australian prime minister looks at what could happen in the financial markets.

Best domestic commercial bank

The downturn proved a sobering and salutary experience for headhunters, Simon Parry discovers. Now there is a marked upswing but the survivors have a new headache: a dearth of young talent. Poll compiled by Olivia Chow and Robert Law.

Economists are expecting Australia's economy to grow a steady 3.5% to 4.2% in 2004, but worries over rising interest rates and a strong Australian dollar weigh heavy on their minds. A jump in interest rates could undermine the development of the construction and housing sector, which could, in turn, drag on the labour market. It is the combination of these unknown factors that has economists as well as bankers, deal makers and consumers, wondering how 2004 will play out in Australia.

If anyone thought that negative yield CBs were only available to Taiwanese or in the Euroyen market, think again. Henderson Land squeezed the market for the most aggressive negative yield to date for an Asian issuer, even including Asian issuers in the Euroyen sector. Goldman Sachs arranged the landmark HK$5.75 billion (US$737 million) deal following a beauty parade. The deal did not quite work out as well as the bank had hoped - it was first launched at par and re-priced to sell at 99%.

In an effort to develop the leading cash management team in Asia, HSBC has promoted three members of its staff in the region. Teoh Jin Kok will take over as head of payments and cash management in Taiwan. He previously worked as head of sales in Singapore. He joined HSBC in 2000 from Bank of America, where he worked in transaction banking and technology services. Iain Taylor now heads up HSBC's Indonesia office after a successful stint running the bank's Korean cash management business. Taylor also previously worked as head of HSBC's payments and cash management in New Zealand. Sam Lim will take over Taylor's lead for the Korean office. Lim, who joined the bank in 2003, has worked to deepen the bank's local market products and services. Lim joined HSBC from Citibank.

Asia's investment banking scene has long resembled a battlefield and casualties have been heavy. Many smaller banks have retreated altogether but it is too early for the bulge-bracket behemoths to declare victory, as Chris Leahy discovers.

Scuffles and scandals in Indonesia * Suits shift to Bali for the Euromoney Investors Conference * Pinning hopes on the legendary turtle's egg