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Within the space of a few months, we have seen the onset of a severe credit crunch, a liquidity crisis at Northern Rock leading to a run on the bank and Société Générale revealing it has lost €4.9 billion ($7.1billion; £3.7 billion) closing out massive unauthorized trades placed by a rogue employee. Some respected commentators are speculating about the onset of a global recession.

This edition of frontiers in finance is primarily focused on retail banking, but touches on all of these themes. While it is impossible – and foolhardy – to predict in detail how the credit crunch will play out, some general implications can be foreseen. And the rest of 2008 looks certain to be a bumpy ride.

On the other side of an increasingly-connected globe, China’s capital markets continue to expand. The sheer size of the sums of money involved means that the country is already a significant force. The authorities are steadily liberalizing China’s exchanges. Stock market capitalization has risen ten-fold in just 2.5 years. Bond and derivative markets are less well-developed as yet. But unless there is a dramatic policy U-turn by the government, these are likely to follow suit.

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