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Fannie Mae, the leading US mortgage lender, last week announced a $3 billion bond issue. The bonds are five year benchmark notes, due November 14 2003.. It was Fannie Mae's first issue in the five-year market since April.

Barbara Galli talks to Olivér Glatz, General Counsel of the National Bank of Hungary

IFLR asked practitioners in Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia how financial authorities are reacting to the Millennium bug and what steps banks should take to achieve compliance

Resisting the pressure to devalue the renminbi, the central bank and State Administration of Foreign Exchange have taken steps to prevent damage to China’s foreign exchange system. By Thomas E Jones of Freshfields, Hong Kong

Securitization is rapidly becoming a common financing technique in Italy with new regulations modelled on foreign securitization rules. By Raffaele Rizzi of Baker & McKenzie, London

US firms suffered from the effects of the Asian crisis on Latin America, but benefited from a thriving market at home, while Canadian firms enjoyed an increasing involvement in global equity offerings. Barbara Galli reports

The Commission has proposed a Directive to establish a clear regulatory framework for the distance-selling of financial services within the single market.

The task force on the future of the Canadian financial services sector was established by the Canadian government in December 1996 to undertake a careful, independent and objective analysis of the broad trends affecting the Canadian financial services industry, and to provide advice on public policy issues to help the government develop a framework for the industry in the 21st century. The task force was comprised of an independent and diverse group of individuals under the chairmanship of lawyer Harold MacKay.

In the wake of Asia’s downturn, Korea has liberalized foreign investment laws and a similar move threatens the legal profession. Stephen Mulrenan reports from Seoul on why lawyers are divided over the issue of foreign competition

Switzerland's telecoms company Swisscom has been privatized in Europe's largest initial public offering (IPO) of 1998. The issue had been valued to raise about Swfr7.5 billion (US$5.6 billion) for the government and Swisscom and to give the company a market capitalization of Swfr25 billion. The deal is the first privatization in Switzerland and the largest ever IPO in the country. It follows the rapid transformation of Swisscom from state-owned entity to private company, having been incorporated in January this year. The success of the Swisscom deal contrasts with the problems experienced by other telecoms offerings. The French government has delayed a secondary offering of shares in France Telecom and Goldman Sachs has withdrawn from the underwriting group for the Telekomunikacja Polska SA IPO due to take place in November.