Happy New Year to all our readers! Welcome to the first Treasurer magazine of the new Millennium. (Or the twelfth, if you are one of those people who believe there was ever a year nought.) I hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas break and have now recovered from the year- end festivities. We have some new ideas for the design and content of the magazine this year and hope you will all appreciate them. Don’t forget – we are always delighted to received any comments, ideas or feedback from our readers. The Publications and the Editorial Committees are merging with effect from 1 January. The Publications Committee was responsible for all the books produced by the Association, as well as The Treasurer’s Handbook. The Editorial Committee has always been responsible for this magazine. The nature of the Association’s book publishing work has changed considerably over the past few years, and it is now more appropriate that the two committees should become one. Now we have a larger committee – the Editorial and Publications Committee (in a few months we’ll come up with a more snappy title). I am continuing as Chairman of the Committee and I am very pleased to say that Arthur Burgess will continue to be Vice Chairman. Arthur and I very much look forward to working with the new committee members who have joined us from the Publications Committee. We hope that they will enjoy working with the existing Editorial team and will also be able to make their mark on The Treasurer. In turn, members of the former Editorial Committee will be able to bring the benefit of their expertise to bear on The Treasurer’s Handbook, the Business of Finance Series and other future publications. This month we have an exciting range of articles for you. We have a couple of articles from contributors with a higher profile than usual: Peter Costello, Australia’s Federal Treasurer, is interviewed by Tony Harrington, PwC’s Country Senior Partner. We also include the Autumn Paper given in November by Sir David Walker, Chairman of Morgan Stanley. Companies need to become more aware than ever of the factors that will affect their credit rating, and in the Treasury Practice section, Matthew Bridgwater examines advances in the way banks measure their credit portfolios. New tools are also considered in Richard Bolchover’s article on protected equity funds. In IT & E-commerce , Bob Lyddon sets out why he believes the time is right for a different approach to international payment methods. For those of you (like me) who spent Christmas wrestling with Dominic Bennett’s fiendish Christmas crossword, I’m sure you will be delighted to see the answers on page 20. VALERIE HAWKES
