Private banking is one of the highest growth and most profitable financial businesses in Europe. A large proportion of the market remains untapped and the 1990s are likely to bring significant expansion in developing countries.
Private Banking in Europe provides new insights into the private banking industry, its growth and future, and emerging opportunities for private bankers and their clients. It debates the importance of global and local service; the potential dichotomy between the wealthy and the successful, and considers the private banking industry. A comparison of key...

This volume takes a unique and challenging look at how money has operated in Islamic society and at how Islamic theoretical frameworks have influenced perceptions of money.
The author draws upon historical, data and policy analysis to present a comparative study of monetary theories, including recent treatment of money by Islamic economists. Discussion also covers the nature of joint venture, stock markets, banks and financial intermediaries, price stability and international trade. This work sheds pioneering light in this area, and will be of interest to academics, graduates and...

Financial organizations, like many others, are undergoing radical change. This is affecting both their organizational processes and the technology that supports those processes. This book reports on the use of sociological ethnography in helping guide these changes, both in terms of helping better understanding and redraw work processes and through providing more accurate and flexible understanding of the role technology plays. It places the reported research in context by contrasting it with those approaches more commonly associated with change, including business process engineering,...

This volume examines the future of European financial centres in the context of economic and monetary union (EMU). Based on original empirical research, it investigates the relative competitiveness of European financial centres, with special reference to London and Frankfurt, in the context of the single currency debate. Issues covered include:
* the evolution of financial centres
* optimal design of an international financial centre
* financial services regulation and EMU
* the competitiveness of world financial centres

This volume provocatively rethinks the economics, politics and sociology of money and examines the classic question of what is money. Starting from the two dominant views of money, as neutral instrument and as social relation, What is Money? presents a thematic, interdisciplinary approach which points to a definitive statement on money.
Bringing together a variety of neclassical and heterodox perspectives, this work collects the latest thinking of some of the best-known economics scholars on the question of money. The contributors are Victoria Chick, Kevin Dowd, Gilles Dostaler,...

This book provides an authoritative overview of the complex practical and policy implications of international payments systems by central bankers from both developed and developing countries, Payments Systems in Global Perspective presents the results of a survey of international central bank practice conducted by the Bank of England.

Since the 1980s, the characteristics model in economics has been applied to the field of finance, and offers a fresh perspective for understanding financial behaviour. It has enabled the analyst and the investor to explore the characteristics of financial products, such as expected return, risk and future marketability, as a dimension distinct from the substance of the product itself. The first part of the volume explores the theoretical implications of such an approach. It examines: the characteristics model of portfolio behaviour and asset pricing, and the characteristics model as a...

In this work, financial professionals and academics examine the prospects for the European single currency. The impact of the Euro is assessed in terms of risks and opportunities for financial intermediaries, challenges for monetary and supervisory authorities, and issues for portfolio management and corporate finance.

After 50 years the Deutsche Bundesbank - the central bank that ruled European monetary affairs - stepped down to entrust monetary policy to the European Central Bank (ECB). The ECB is largely modelled after the Bundesbank. No doubt, this has something to do with the success of the Bundesbank in keeping inflation low. What lessons can be learnt for the ECB from the experience of the Bundesbank? The Bundesbank has been, and in the near future the ECB will be, the most important macroeconomic institution for more than two decades. The essays in this book ask questions such as how independent is...

This book, written by a multinational team of experts, explores the changing face of central banking in Eastern Europe in the light of modern macroeconomic thinking, providing important and novel insights into the design of monetary policy institutions.
With its authoritative content, this book will interest students and academics involved with money and banking, macroeconomics and Eastern European studies. Professionals working for financial institutions will also find plenty that will appeal within these pages.