On January 15th the governments of Singapore, Kuwait and South Korea provided much of a $21 billion lifeline to Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, two banks that have lost fortunes in America's credit crisis.

It was not the first time either had tapped the surplus savings of developing countries, known as sovereign-wealth funds, that have proliferated in recent years thanks to bumper oil prices and surging Asian exports. Since the subprime-mortgage fiasco unfolded last year, such funds have gambled almost $69 billion on recapitalising the rich world's biggest investment banks (far more than usually goes the other way in an emerging-markets crisis). With as much as $2.9 trillion to invest (see article), the funds' horizons go beyond finance to telecoms and technology companies, casino operators, even aerospace.

But it is in banking where they have arrived most spectacularly. They have deftly played the role of saviour just when Western banks have been exposed as the achilles heel of the global financial system.

More at; The invasion of the sovereign-wealth funds