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The City Of Basel, built on the site of a Roman fort, is home to one of the world's oldest international financial organizations, the Bank for International Settlements. The picturesque Swiss mountains, made famous as the backdrop to posters for the Sound of Music (never mind that it was the Austrian Alps in the movie), radiate an aura of stability and changelessness.

Small family banks fear that the cost of complying with the revised Basel Accord may drive them out of business, writes Louis Beckerling. Additional reports by Saibal Dasgupta and Pauline Loong.

Dealogic's Peter McMillan highlights some of the capital market transactions in the region and comments on trends and new developments. Dateline: Hong Kong, September 21, 2003

Markets don't come any more emerging than East Timor. It was internationally recognized only as recently as May 2002. Eric Ellis reports on the unusual problems bankers face in the tiny new nation, which lies east of Java.

Funding equipment capital expenditure

Real estate investment trusts have long been a success in Australia. The rest of the region may come to find this instrument attractive. Amid the investment hype, lawyer Michael Chin warns of the need for investor protection.

Securitization has come a long way since the concept gained popularity in Asia several years ago. It has now moved beyond the specialists' area and has become more broad-based. Capital-raising exercises in the region routinely feature securitized instruments. And these have become increasingly more exotic. Synthetic collateralized debt obligations (CDO), for example, now come in many varieties: hybrid cash/synthetic and inedex-linked and synethetic re-securitization. They can be single-tranche or multi-tranche. The single tranche may be static, lightly managed or fully managed. The static version may incorporate additional structures featuring reserve funds, step-up coupons and diversion of excess spread.

Mid-cap companies have outperformed every major index in Asia over the past three years, according to research commissioned by Asiamoney. Raymond Blondin, managing director of Finasia, a provider of data to financial institutions, argues the case.

BoJ takes a radical stance that some question, others admire.

A new sector of the Japanese securitization market has opened with the first residential mortgage backed deal by a Japanese regional bank. The deal is likely to prepare the way for other regional Japanese banks to securitize housing loan receivables. Dominic Jones reports.

Syndicated loans, equity, debt and M&A

Confidence returns as government gives comfort to lenders