Asia Pacific

Industrial Bank of Korea has sold its first social bond, but only after months of waiting for the market to calm.

Beijing Capital Grand closed a successful $400m floating rate bond on Thursday, after waiting weeks for a market window. But the transaction fell flat in the secondary market after a bookrunner’s withdrawal from the trade spooked investors.

The renminbi is the fifth most used payments currency in the world despite a fall in payments value in June, credit rating agencies in China are set to undergo a review by commercial banks, and the asset management arm of UBS starts a fund to tap both onshore and offshore Chinese stocks.

Xi calls on other countries to fight protectionism, the Chinese government modifies fiscal policy to support the central bank’s easing of monetary policy, and the securities watchdog hints at the return of stock index futures.

HDFC Bank is planning to raise up to Rp155bn ($2.26bn) through a qualified institutional placement (QIP), or a handful of other methods, according to a stock exchange filing on Thursday evening.

Web browser Opera has bagged $115m from its Nasdaq IPO after a flood of demand made top-end pricing a certainty, according to a source close to the deal.

A new dawn has broken for RMB business in Japan, as the country prepares to launch its first RMB clearing bank and a local currency swap line with China. For now bankers are focusing on new renminbi investment quotas, which could mobilise the vast pool of Japanese household assets to tap onshore Chinese securities.

The IMF appears to have taken a cue from the Trump administration in its China country report published on July 25. The report made little effort to smooth over the urgent need for China to open up its economy and move forward with a restructuring of its regulatory setup.

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange has put a proposal to give weighted voting rights (WVRs) to corporate entities on ice, after a tiff with its mainland counterparts and pushback from investors. But the move is not an automatic win for its rival in Singapore, which last month allowed companies to hold dual-class shares. John Loh writes.

China Aircraft Leasing is back with a $790m borrowing, pushing for a longer tenor to support its aircraft purchasing.

Reliance Industries has made a quick return to the offshore loan market with a $2.7bn refinancing deal, having picked 17 banks to act as mandated lead arrangers and bookrunners.

Fortune Oil PRC Holdings has returned to the offshore loan market for a $400m borrowing, refinancing a smaller deal closed in 2016.