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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.

It’s time for investors to pressure borrowers to emphasise Scope 3 emissions if they want to make the difference to climate change they claim they do.

It’s funny how every four years we all become increasingly patriotic and turn experts in niche sports we would otherwise never watch.

Aligning with a global commercial bank has been on Jefferies’ agenda for several years, but its alliance with SMBC signals an intent to join the investment banking big league. By David Rothnie.

South Korea’s financial regulator has stepped up scrutiny of big IPOs recently, disrupting a few listings and stoking concerns about a pullback in deal flow. Investors have so far been undeterred — but it’s time they start paying attention.

Standard Chartered’s mould-breaking front office apprenticeship scheme is to be lauded. The programme stands to supply the City not just with a new breed of banker but, if handled well, could bring that rarest of commodities to high finance — genuine diversity.