The United States as a monetary union and the euro: a historical perspective.
The creation of the euro in January 1999 was a milestone in monetary history. One currency supplanted the centuries old currencies of 12 sovereign nations, and the European Central Bank began conducting monetary policy for the new European Monetary Union. Moreover, major legal hurdles to the free movement of...

Greater international links in banking--challenges for banking regulation.
Some recent trends in bank regulation are examined, with particular focus upon the issues raised by multinational banking for collaboration between banking regulators. The experiences of the European Union and of Australian and New Zealand are outlined in order to illustrate the difficulties involved and prospects for harmonisation. ...

Banks get up to date.
THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST there is a desire to modernise banking systems in order to create an infrastructure to support a financial industry. From fledgeling stock exchanges to overhauling 10-year old computing systems, modernisation is moving at a rapid pace. Iran is no exception, and is currently being courted...

Bank industry risk analysis: Australia.
This paper identifies major strengths and weaknesses of the Australian Banking Sector with a focus on risk characteristics. It notes that: the major banks are among the most profitable globally; robust industry regulation is supported by transparent accounting policies and practices; and adequate capitalization is supported by good-quality residential...

2005 banking report: strong regional economy sees banking profits soar.
After an exceptional year in 2004, which saw rapid growth in profits and assets, most financial services institutions--led by the major Gulf banks --expect to record even higher earnings this year thanks to unprecedented expansion in the retail and corporate sectors. The exploding oil revenues are significant but not...

Navigating the path of least resistance: financial deregulation and the origins of the Japanese crisis.
This article reexamines the period of the Japanese bubble (1985-1990) and emphasizes ill-supervised and ill-sequenced financial deregulation as a key proximate factor. Given the subsequent costs of this political choice, what explains such a path of domestic financial deregulation without the establishment of corresponding supervisory institutions? I argue that...

Principles of Islamic banking: debt versus equity financing. (Akacem: principles of Islamic banking).
It is difficult to pinpoint the start of Islamic banking, but the consensus is that it took place in Egypt in the 1960s. (2) The Egyptian experiment did not last very long, and it was not until the mid 1970s before Islamic banking started to take hold in many...

Central banks and payment instruments: a serious case of schizophrenia.
Abstract: This article analyses the competition between cash and payment cards against the backdrop of the dual role of central banks--as issuers of cash and as institutions with a mandate to foster the efficiency of payment systems in general. It is argued that this dual role results in a...

Arabs wage war on money laundering: Arab governments are adopting strict new standards to prevent the misuse of banks in the Middle East by terror organisations and financial manipulators. These efforts could enhance efforts to develop new global financial centres in the Levant.
IN VIRTUALLY ALL large cities of the Gulf, bank headquarters are often among the most prominent buildings on the skyline. No wonder: they are key engines driving local economies. Those institutions are also poised to play a more global role, thanks to the vast sums of money...

The Asian crisis and the adequacy of regional institutions.
The weight of scholarly and official opinion on what measures will best promote an East Asian recovery from the financial crisis advocates reform either at the national or the global level. Those who find the major causes of the crisis in weaknesses in individual East Asian economies stress that...