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Europe's merry-go-round for senior bankers jerked forwards last week. Most dramatically, Jean Pierre Mustier is leaving UniCredit: he will not stay beyond April 2021, the end of his current mandate. The French chief executive disagreed with board members over strategy, and in particular whether the bank should concentrate more on Italy.

In this round-up, China posts stronger-than-expected export data for November, the banking and insurance regulator fines Bank of China over ‘irregularities’ in a crude oil product, and an Ant Group unit and a Greenland-led consortium win digital banking licences.

This week in Keeping Tabs: attractive credit picks, physical shops adapting to online retail and a new drama about investment banking.

In this round-up, China unveils guidelines to assess its domestic systemically important banks, both the November Caixin China manufacturing and general services Purchasing Managers’ Indexes beat expectations, and the US House of Representatives waves through a bill that could delist Chinese companies from its stock exchanges.

Jean Pierre Mustier's departure from UniCredit may help Italy in an attempt — shared by governments and supervisors around Europe — to push the banking sector to help solve economic policy problems during the pandemic.

In Hong Kong, it seems it only takes one septuagenarian ballroom dancer to cause a massive spike in coronavirus cases. But funding officials can be almost as dangerous.

The newest recruit to the ranks of large supranational issuers is also the bulkiest. Responding to Covid-19, the EU has created the €100bn SURE fund, active already, and a €750bn Next Gen EU programme, coming next year. Both are bond-financed, requiring a huge increase in the EU’s until now modest issuance, especially in the next two or three years.

European green bond issuance has significantly outpaced that in other regions over the last four years and in 2020 the European Union is set to be responsible for more than 50% of global green bond issues (sources: S&P Ratings, Climate Bond Initiative).

There are a lot of positive things to say about the European Union’s draft Taxonomy of Sustainable Economic Activities, but as far as buildings are concerned, its aims are too ambitious. Without a last minute reprieve, it risks killing the nascent market for green wholesale property finance.

A rotation into some cyclical stocks has lifted equity markets of late. But investor returns overall are still heavily reliant on a small basket of tech stocks with sky high valuations and any retreat from these names in a hurry could prompt a stock market rout.

Film buffs recognise that sometimes a sequel can be better than the original. Perhaps it does not have the same novelty, but scriptwriters can move on from establishing the back story to delivering a movie with wider appeal.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance has reportedly asked state-owned banks to take six steps to avoid lending to companies that will end up defaulting. Some of these steps are obvious, others are impractical — and all of them are unnecessary.