Americas

In this round-up, Hong Kong deposits rose in April, but cross-border RMB trade settlement fell, Macau announced its March deposit figures, ICBC opened two new offshore branches in Montreal and Riyadh, RMB clearing in South Korea has reached a daily average of Rmb25bn, and Japanese bank MUFG helped Brazilian clients settle trade with China in RMB.

With hopes high among debt bankers that Brazil could become a core source of green bond issues, BR Foods (BRF) sold the first environmentally friend bond from the country last Friday.

Brazilian food group BRF sold its debut euro denominated note around 25bp wide of its dollar curve on Friday with a green bond issue that DCM bankers said was an impressive result for an inaugural deal in the currency.

Chile has taken the prized spot of being the first Latin American renminbi hub, with a clearing bank, a central bank swap line and an RMB qualified foreign institutional investors (RQFII) quota all being announced on May 25.

Benchmark euro covered bond issuance from a core borrower is expected soon after Rabobank and Swedbank reopened the senior market. Meanwhile, DNB Boligkreditt followed ANZ into the dollar 144A market on Wednesday with a similarly sized deal, in the same tenor and at the same price.

The latest data from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) shows that the renminbi has returned to fifth place in the ranking of most active global payments currencies, accounting for 2.03% of payments worldwide in March 2015.

Toronto-Dominion Bank smoothly executed the sixth seven year euro covered bond this week despite a Bloomberg blackout delaying the process. The larger than usual €1.25bn deal offered a decent new issue premium and attracted comfortably oversubscribed book.

National Bank of Canada (NBC) priced the first 144a three year dollar benchmark since July 2013 on Monday. The lack of comparable deals meant there was an element of discovery in pricing, which was almost excessively defensive. BayernLB was set to price a three year Reg S public sector dollar benchmark.

National Bank of Canada is on track to sell a $750m three year covered bond, its first covered bond in dollars since 2011.

Toronto Dominion issued the ninth sterling denominated covered bond of the year on Wednesday, and the third from a Canadian bank in the three year floating format. The transaction provided better executable funding than it could have achieved in dollars or euros. The issuer followed Bank of Nova Scotia, which on Tuesday priced the third Canadian dollar benchmark of the year, funding more cheaply than was possible in euros.

A pickup in primary market activity continued apace on Wednesday when Stadshypotek sold the sixth dollar denominated covered bond in the US this year.

LatAm delegates who struggled with the 40-hour journey to get the IADB meetings in Busan are likely to return with harsh lessons on trade tariffs rather than a recipe to replicate South Korea’s economic miracle.