Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

The Russian Ministry of Finance is living in a fantasy land if it thinks the IMF will have to reconsider its support of Ukraine under the Extended Fund Facility Agreement, according to analysts.

Private bank Otkritie has nearly completed a $185m one year loan, one of only a few international loans completed by Russian banks since the introduction of financial sanctions on the country by the US and European Union in late 2014.

Metinvest’s restructuring saga looks set to continue well into 2016 after the Ukrainian lender asked investors for a waiver of default up to May 27, 2016.

Sistema JSFC, the holding company of a Russian investment firm, has signed a $350m club loan with two Chinese banks.

Russian fertiliser producer EuroChem has secured a €557m club loan for a subsidiary with the support of SACE, the Italian credit export agency.

Russia's Ministry of Finance has initiated legal action against Ukraine over the latter’s failure to repay a $3bn December 2015 Eurobond. It also claims that the default breaches the terms of the International Monetary Fund’s Extended Fund Facility.

Sovcomflot, Russia’s largest shipping company, has signed a $340m bilateral loan with Sberbank CIB. In previous years it regularly obtained syndicated loans from international banks.

Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB) on Monday sold the second note from its EMTN programme, after drawing demand from asset managers.

Ukraine announced a moratorium on the $3bn bond held by Russia’s National Welfare Fund on Friday. The moratorium also covers Ukraine’s sovereign-guaranteed loans for Ukravtodor and Yuzhnoye.

In the last RMB round-up of 2015, HSBC became the first foreign bank to issue RMB-denominated CDs to corporates in China, Hungary plans RMB bonds in 2016 and Russian bank VTB saw a big boost to its RMB business in 2015. Plus, a recap of GlobalRMB’s top stories this week.

Good news from the US Federal Reserve — in the form of a more dovish rate announcement than some market participants had expected — brought a sanguine close to a turbulent week for credit derivatives and boosted equity markets, but only added to the pressure on emerging market countries and their currencies.

More cross-border RMB activities can be expected as the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has approved Rmb50bn ($774m) of RQFII quota to Thailand, and agreed with Russia to deepen bilateral financial co-operations, including facilitating the Russian government to issue Panda bond in China.