With the unveiling yesterday of Bank of America Merrill Lynch's new executive committee for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Financial News lists five big tasks facing these heads of business over the proceeding months.

• Integration: easing the culture clash.

Bringing together two opposing forces is always going to provoke a collision of sorts. The integration of Merrill Lynch, which prided itself on sophisticated financial advice, risk management and trading, and Bank of America, thought of as a conservative retail bank, will be no exception. The executive committee, which will itself probably act as a microcosm of relations for the banking group, will have to employ a great deal of tact and nous to accelerate the integration successfully without ostracising key dealmakers on either side. Some of the big decisions will have to be made on governance, management supervision and the bank's internal controls.