The PEP-II and KEK asymmetric B factories are providing the BaBar and BELLE collaborations large samples of B mesons, enabling high-statistics searches for rare B decays. The rates for some of these decays can be enhanced by contributions from new physics, while others can provide constraints on the Unitarity Triangle. The author reviews a variety of recent results on rare B decays from these two experiments.

Recent BABAR and Belle results on rare B decays involving photons or lepton pairs are reviewed. New preliminary limits from both experiments for B[yields][rho][gamma] and B[sup 0][yields][Omega][gamma], and from BABAR for B[sup -][yields] K[sup -][nu][bar[nu]] and B[sup+][yields][tau][sup+][nu][sub[tau]] are presented. Also summarized from the past year are Belle measurements of B[yields] X[sub s][ell][sup+][ell][sup -] and B[sup 0][yields] K*[sub 2](1430)[sup 0][gamma], preliminary BABAR measurements of B[yields] X[sub s][gamma], and preliminary results from BABAR and Belle on B[yields] K[sup (*)][ell][sup+][ell][sup -]. No significant deviations from Standard Model predictions have yet been found.

Recent results from Belle and BaBar on rare B decays involving flavor-changing neutral currents or purely leptonic final states are presented. Measurements of the CP asymmetries in B {yields} K*{gamma} and b {yields} s{gamma} are reported. Also reported are updated limits on B{sup +} {yields} K{sup +}{nu}{bar {nu}}, B{sup +} {yields} {tau}{sup +}{nu}, B{sup +} {yields} {mu}{sup +}{nu} and the recent measurement of B {yields} X{sub s}{ell}{sup +}{ell}{sup -}.

Rare hadronic B-meson decays allow us to study CP violation. The class of B-decays final states containing two vector mesons provides a rich set of angular correlation observables to study. This article reviews some of the recent experimental results from the BABAR and Belle collaborations.