6 September
OMX AB said it is considering buying Warsaw's bourse, eastern Europe's largest bourse, with the idea of creating the core of a eastern and central European bourse cooperation, the newspaper Dagens Industri reported. "We are interested in the Warsaw bourse, and we have had a dialogue with them," Jukka Ruuska, head of share trading at OMX said. Ruuska said OMX's strategy was to bring together regional markets in order to being competitive through critical mass, but to retain the local market set up so that investors still feel at home. The report did not disclose how far the talks had developed. (AFP)

4 September
Howard Palmer, an expert witness in fraud cases and a former banker, estimates there are between 2,000-3,000 active fraudsters working inside London's 500 banks. Many more employees are being bribed and then blackmailed to conceal transactions or hand over information. "The industry is sitting on a huge number of very expensive time bombs," he concludes. "It's the scariest thing I've ever seen." (Telegraph)

3 September
Reuters added 5¾p to 326½p on murmurs that it is close to selling its 51 per cent stake in Radianz, its loss- making telecoms joint venture with France’s Equant, to BT Group, up ¾p at 183¼p. The financial information provider has been expected to trim its holding as part of its programme of disposing of non-core assets, but yesterday's talk was that Reuters, one of Radianz's biggest clients, has decided to offload it to BT in return for a long-term service contract struck at favourable terms. (Times)

27 August
Investment banks say they are finding better prices for eurozone government bonds away from the MTS electronic platform by reverting to the traditional means of phone broking. Banks say that if they have a position in a bond which they need to unwind for a client, especially a less liquid bond, taking it to the MTS platform may result in a loss. By ringing around they can find better prices than on MTS. The head of bond trading at one major European bank said: “The voice-broking share of the interdealer market has increased this year because it offers more flexibility.” (Financial Times)