CSOB's profits rose, but only because it also under-provisioned, reckons Jack Schrantz, a strategist at Austria's Raiffeisen Zentralbank.

ECONOMIST: Czech banking

CSOB, its foreign-trade bank, by the middle of next year, and large chunks of Komercni and Sporitelna by mid-2000.

ECONOMIST: Eastern Europe��s banks

CSOB, and local broking firms to form the Foundation for Capital Market Development.

ECONOMIST: Czech investment funds