Lock, stock and barrel

Banks forced into mergers by the recent crisis assume not only each other's existing risks but also those that arise when integrating separate, well-established operational risk functions. Duncan Wood looks at how some of the recently merged banks are faring as the dust settles

The recent crisis has produced a wave of bank mergers that are not so much happy marriages as shotgun weddings - with all the attendant recriminations and resentment. At the end of April, reports claimed the US government had threatened Bank of America's top management and board of directors with the sack if they did not rubber-stamp the bank's acquisition of Merrill Lynch, despite Merrill's