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Asian borrowers are showing growing interest in sealing multiple bilateral loans over syndicated deals in a bid to save time and funding costs. But while one-on-one fundraising exercises make sense in the current market environment, issuers should be wary about abandoning syndication entirely.

The buy-side appeared to up its ESG game this week with 35 investment firms running $8.5tr of money signing up to the Net Zero Investment Framework. Meanwhile, HSBC made changes to its own climate commitments.

In this round-up, Chinese premier Li Keqiang defends Beijing’s ‘above 6%’ annual GDP growth target, China’s exports soar during the first two months of the year, and the securities regulator is reportedly planning to increase scrutiny on IPOs in Shanghai’s Star market.

One big crisis should be enough for anyone's career. But Sir Robert Stheeman, chief executive of the UK's Debt Management Office, has had to face two monumental financial catastrophes in the last 13 years — first the 2008 UK banking crisis and then last year's pandemic.

Hundreds of things happened this week in sustainable finance. That’s normal now — it’s become a fizzing, global market which is ever-present. Anyone who predicted, say, four years ago that sustainable finance would take over the whole capital market probably feels the outcome has exceeded their expectations.

There are more risks than rewards for banks in the primary market right now.

I have been told that March 8 was International Women's Day. It’s a relatively new one to me, but I applaud the efforts people are making to celebrate the hardworking women in our lives.

The rise in US Treasury yields in reaction to the government's $1.9tr stimulus package has prompted a shift in equity markets away from highly valued tech stocks that may do less well if interest rates rise as a result of higher inflation. But if the switch means investor portfolios reflect the wider economy, that is a positive development.

The transition of Asia’s capital markets away from Libor got a small boost recently when Korea Development Bank sold the region’s second public dollar bond linked to the new benchmark lending rate, Sofr. But the pace of change is not fast enough.

Much of Notebook’s focus was on the UK this week where the government's Budget threw up the creation of a new SSA issuer (maybe, at some point) and the distinct possibility of Threadneedle Street turning green.

In this round-up, smaller Chinese firms see the slowest growth in manufacturing and services activity since mid-2020, the head of the Chinese banking and insurance regulator is wary of bubbles bursting in foreign markets, and the onshore sale of the so-called ‘carbon neutrality bonds’ moves from the interbank market to the smaller exchange market.

In this special round-up on China’s annual Two Sessions parliamentary meeting, the central government sets a conservative annual growth target for the Chinese economy in 2021, signals a modest tightening in fiscal and monetary policies, and plans to broaden regulatory oversight of the fintech sector.