Europe

Guarantor: Financial Market Stabilisation Fund of the Federal Republic of Germany

UK banks have surfaced in the unsecured debt markets for the first time in about four months, buoyed by optimism about a series of crucial votes on Brexit in parliament next week. Experts suggest that the country’s financial institutions will have to get used to these sorts of narrow issuance windows, with the country yet to even start the most challenging stages of its exit from the European Union.

Shares in Funding Circle Holdings, the UK peer-to-peer lending platform, closed up on Thursday despite the company reporting a widening loss in 2018 because of the costs of its £440m IPO on the London Stock Exchange in September.

The final text of the net stable funding ratio has improved slightly compared to earlier versions, but the covered bond industry’s hopes for equal treatment relative to senior unsecured debt has fallen on deaf ears. The Council of Europe is expected to adopt the regulation from mid-March before putting it to a parliamentary vote in April.

Following the success of its first 10 year bond in almost a decade, Greece is looking to have a frequent presence in the debt capital markets. The sovereign may even return with either a tap or a new issue this year, even though it has met its minimum planned issuance of benchmark bonds for 2019 and has a significant cash buffer.

XTX Markets, the quantitative-driven electronic market-maker, has appointed Serge Harry as chairman of its new French entity and Geoffrey Damien as managing director, head of France.

Dan Oakes, head of international ECM origination at Commerzbank, is changing roles with the bank and moving to Paris.

Ukraine goes to the polls at the end of March for presidential elections, with investors in Kiev hoping that a reform-friendly result might help the country share more fully in the emerging markets rally.

EMEA loans bankers are taking some positives from developments in the wider capital markets.

The World Bank is beefing up its communications operations in Europe, a region with mainly donors rather than recipients. It wants to ensure that it is getting its message out to the people who ultimately fund its work.

The European Central Bank struck a decidedly dovish tone at its meeting on Thursday, meaning there were no nasty surprises for SSAs planning bond issues in the coming days. A French agency is on screens for a deal in dollars this Friday, while euro and dollar benchmarks are slated for next week.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has appointed Pablo Hernández de Cos, governor of the Bank of Spain, as its new chair. He takes over as the committee looks to reflect on post-crisis regulation.