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Mainland China’s sustainable bond market has gone from strength to strength recently, with issuers and investors finding new opportunities and embracing international standards.

Central banks’ control was once limited to financial matters — they squatted in the corner, largely unseen. Now, they are stars in the drama — active, talkative stewards of the economy. Society looks to them to solve its problems; not to synch with government, but to make up for its deficiencies.

There are worrying signs in the way Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s tier twos have traded after UniCredit signalled its interest in the bank.

They say it takes three seconds to form an opinion of someone. So, naturally, it’s important to make a great first impression.

Polling for GlobalCapital's Covered Bond Awards 2021 closes at 5:30pm London time on Monday, August 16, so please be sure to cast your firm’s vote if you haven’t already done so. Preliminary data shows that the frontrunners for many awards are in close contention, so every vote stands to make a huge difference.

The US regulator’s demand for more disclosures from Chinese companies planning New York listings may be a death knell for the flow of IPOs between the two markets — but it could go a long way towards offering investors some much-needed transparency.

There are growing calls to build all-encompassing regulatory structures around environmental, social and governance ratings and disclosures. This is the wrong course of action and will undermine efforts to achieve the overarching goal, which is fighting climate change.

In this round-up, China’s official manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fails to meet expectation in July, the US puts additional information disclosure requirements in place for Chinese IPO hopefuls, and foreign financial institutions continue expanding in the Mainland.

Across the world’s financial centres, summer interns and graduate trainees are taking their first steps in investment banking. But has the jobs market changed? Is investment banking still the draw it was?

It is difficult these days, if not impossible, to find a bank that does not have an official policy or target to boost diversity and inclusion. By pushing them out of their comfort zones, could the pandemic help finally turn these aspirations into reality?

Spanish waste management company Urbaser has postponed a €1.63bn prospective term loan ‘B’, with sources close to the deal blaming summer fatigue.

Investment bankers tend have a built-in sense of infectious optimism that helps them to convince issuers to mandate them or investors to buy securities and other financial products, and also gets them through tough times. So it is only natural that, while rightly recognising the terrible human cost of the Covid-19 pandemic, they should be searching for silver linings.