Australia

Westpac this week followed Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in taking advantage of a glut of sterling covered bond liquidity. It issued a sizeable five year sterling covered bond which is expected to provide cheaper funding than the euro or dollar equivalent, boding well for additional supply.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has laid out the foundations for its licensing of new index benchmarks, with five already in line to be classified as “significant”.

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group on Monday became a clearing member of OTC Clearing Hong Kong (OTC Clear), the OTC derivatives clearing house of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX).

Order book momentum for the first Australian conditional pass through (CPT) issued by Bank of Queensland (BoQ) was quick to build when the deal was finally launched on Thursday, owing to the “eye-catching” initial spread.

After mandating leads on Monday, market participants expected Bank of Queensland’s (BoQ) debut covered bond would emerge on Tuesday. The deal’s absence from a quiet market led to speculation of a minor teething problem with leads confirming the deal is still being being worked on.

Leads Building Society extended its covered bond curve by four years on Monday with a €500m seven year covered bond that was priced with little new issue premium. The transaction is expected to be followed by Bank of Queensland’s first covered bond.

Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) has hired Duncan Connellan as managing director of its Australian event finance team, part of the firm’s Asian investment banking division.

The Reserve Bank of Australia gave a rare endorsement by a foreign central bank of China's renminbi internationalisation strategy, acknowledging that RMB activity in the Sydney hub was picking up despite the RMBi agenda suffering a setback globally.

The Bank of Queensland (BOQ) has mandated joint leads to roadshow its newly set up conditional pass-through (CPT) A$3.25bn (€2.18bn) covered bond programme.

Citi has promoted Stella Choe to the position of head of corporate banking for Australia and New Zealand, succeeding Shane Taylor who is retiring from the firm, according to an internal memo seen by GlobalCapital Asia.

Goldman Sachs has poached David Hurley from Citi to take up a key role in institutional equities in Australia, according to sources close to the move.

MS, CS promotions in Oz — ABN Amro FIG hire — Natixis names new fixed income head — Pakistan returns to MSCI EM — Citi Korea boosts overseas reach with new desks