Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

Evgenia Tyurikova has been hired as Sberbank’s new head of private banking.

In this round-up, China's cross-border trade settlement fell to a near three-year low in February, CME reports record levels of trading in its offshore RMB futures, RMB spot trading fell but swap trading surged on the Moscow Exchange, Singapore renewed its currency swap line, and Deutsche Bank sets up a the first interbank host-to host platform by a foreign bank in China. Plus, a recap of GlobalRMB's top stories this week.

As further news of banks being unofficially asked to stay out of arranging a Russian sovereign bond was leaked this week, gas giant Gazprom entered the Swiss franc market and drew one of the largest ever books for a note in the currency, demonstrating the pent up demand that exists for Russian paper.

Gazprom printed its Sfr500m bond on Wednesday from a Sfr2bn book, one of the largest ever for an international issuer in the Swiss franc market.

The Republic of Bulgaria is fully funded for 2016 and the international bond it printed earlier this week will be its only one for the year, according to deputy minister of finance Karina Karaivanova.

Gazprom has set the spread on its first post-sanctions Swiss franc bond, a short dated note that is offering plenty of juice to yield starved private bank investors, according to bankers.

The right way to keep banks off the Russia deal is adding Russia to official US and EU sanctions lists. Having words with banks through back channels opens up a grey area ripe for misinterpretation. It’s only fair to everyone involved to sanction the sovereign or let it do the deal.

Bulgaria marked its capital markets coming of age on Monday after timing its first intraday execution of a Eurobond to perfection. The €1.994bn note left the country fully funded for the year.

TriOptima the over-the-counter post-trade service provider, has torn up more than $750tr in notional principal outstanding contracts since it launched its compression service for OTC derivatives in 2003, the firm said on Monday.

Bulgaria opened books on a dual tranche euro denominated note on Monday, becoming the first CEEMEA name to pounce on the post-European Central Bank (ECB) meeting relief rally.

In this round-up, Malaysia opens RMB qualified foreign institutional investor (RQFII) applications, Macau launches a RMB real time gross settlement (RTGS) payment system, China Construction Bank (CCB) will join the new London silver fix, and the Singapore Exchange (SGX) reported a strong start to RMB currency futures trading in 2016. Plus, a recap of GlobalRMB's top stories this week.

CEE sovereigns rallied on Thursday in response to Mario Draghi’s plans to extend quantitative easing. But while some emerging markets bankers were hitting the phones to line up trades next week, others were less convinced that the news would have any impact on issuance.