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Ripples of change are being felt throughout the Indian banking sector as the country's banks begin the difficult process of shedding excess staff and the government, at last, prepares to launch a clutch of measures for the recovery of sticky loans. Saibal Dasgupta reports.

It wasn't easy to decide on our finance minister, central banker and restructuring agency of the year – and not because of an abundance of riches to choose from. Many economists declined to applaud anyone at all, and we have decided nobody merited the restructuring agency award this year. But there are positive stories – Hong Kong and Singapore enjoyed a year of prudent if unexceptional financial management, and China showed signs of real reform. In the end, China takes the plaudits. By Chris Wright.

After the euphoria of Estrada's removal, the Arroyo leadership and forthcoming elections in the Philippines are being viewed with comparative calm. New appointments, particularly of secretary of finance Alberto Romulo seem solid, but after past disappointments it will take time for confidence to return. By Matthew Montagu-Pollock.

Daniel Tsai, vice president of the Fubon Group, is committed to overturning Taiwan's conventional style of conducting business – even if it means rejecting the means by which he secured his own appointment. By Dominic Jones.

How can the Philippines' financial system move forward, now that the political crisis has been resolved? Asiamoney talks to the governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Rafael Buenaventura, ex-head of the Bankers' Association of the Philippines, former head of PCI Bank, and the country's most senior ex-Citibanker, who has come out of the Philippines' political crisis with job and reputation intact.

How can the Philippines' financial system move forward, now that the political crisis has been resolved? Asiamoney talks to the governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Rafael Buenaventura, ex-head of the Bankers' Association of the Philippines, former head of PCI Bank, and the country's most senior ex-Citibanker, who has come out of the Philippines' political crisis with job and reputation intact.

India's market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), has debarred 10 broking houses, including one run by Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB), from carrying out broking business until further notice. The ban comes in the wake of a market manipulation scandal and involves brokers that have been linked to investment firms owned by Ketan Parekh, the Mumbai broker in judicial custody for his alleged role in the Rs1.37 billion (US$29.3 million) bank pay order scandal. The move follows a series of market crashes that have destroyed the feel-good factor generated by the 2001-02 budget. The Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-stock sensitive index (sensex) tumbled 1,000 points from 4,247 points after the budget was presented in parliament on February 28 to 3,247 on April 13 (though in the trading week of April 16-20 the market did recover some 400 points). This fall came despite the fact that the budget was widely viewed by international investors as being a positive step.

Few were surprised by the collapse of the Australian Derivative Exchange (ADX) after just three months of operation: least of all former chief executive of the Sydney Futures Exchange and chief executive of AXISS Australia, Les Hosking. "It's quite rare for any marketplace in the world to sustain two contracts that are very similar," says Hosking. "It's always been the case that the marketplace chooses one contract over another." With trading volumes of about 120 contracts a day covering its three product offerings – a 90-day bill contract, a five-year bond contract and a share price index future based on the Morgan Stanley Capital International Index – the ADX fell short of the 40,000 trades a day it needed to break even. By comparison, the Sydney Futures Exchange (SFE) had been reaching record volumes over the same period, averaging about 125,000 contracts a day.

Despite political uncertainty and recurrent outbreaks of violence, foreign investors have not been deterred from buying more than a billion dollars' worth of Indonesian companies from PT Holdiko Perkasa, a subsidiary of the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (Ibra), over the past year. Holdiko Perkasa deals with the assets of the country's largest former conglomerate, the Salim group, which makes up around 45% of the companies under Ibra's divestment programme by value. In the past year the company has used a mix of market deals, local IPOs, sales to strategic investors and open tenders to raise more than Rp10 trillion (US$851.7 million) for the government. Apart from the sale of PT Astra International for US$506 million,the largest deals were the sale of Salim's plantations for US$368 million to Malaysian investor Kumpulan Guthrie, its mosquito coil business to Reckitt of the UK for Rp610 billion, and its coal business for US$45 million to a Thai investor. Shortly to be completed is the transfer of Indocement, the largest local cement company, to Heidelberger of Germany in a complex deal that involves debt to equity swaps and a rights issue. A local listing of a 15% stake in TV station Indosiar raised Rp193 billion, and a further stake may be sold later to foreign investors following a change in legislation related to broadcasting and a debt refinancing deal.

There were mixed fortunes in Asia last month for two on-line bond platforms. E-Bond Securities, a joint venture between Lehman Brothers and Softbank, closed its doors, while BondsInAsia announced a new member, BNP Paribas. E-Bond Securities, which was established in October 1999 but began operating much more recently, was owned 60% by Softbank and 40% by Lehman Brothers. It was formed to operate a proprietary trading system dealing mainly in municipal bonds and bank and corporate debentures. The company had planned to contract with at least 50 brokerages but struggled to find participants and was reported to have had only 10 signed clients at the time of its demise. A spokesman has been quoted as saying: "It was too early for our business model."

Syndicated lending, the stalwart of the region's loan sector, should remain a vibrant market despite a difficult first quarter. But demand for assets on the part of banks will continue to drive pricing down for strong borrowers. Joy Lee reports.

Last June, Asiamoney printed a rather controversial cover. It depicted Lee Hsien Yang, the CEO of Singapore Telecom (SingTel) whose more famous relatives include his brother, deputy prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, and his father Lee Kuan Yew – the founder of modern Singapore. In the picture, he was arm in arm with Singapore's famous landmark, the merlion. Both of them were sinking. The story followed SingTel's very public failure in two conspicuous and politically charged acquisition attempts, first for Cable & Wireless HKT in Hong Kong and then for Time Engineering in Malaysia, and argued that SingTel was always going to struggle to make regional acquisitions so long as it was perceived to represent the Singapore government itself. (SingTel was, at the time, 78% held by Temasek, the company that owns and manages the government's direct investments.)