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The common eurozone sovereign bond keeps rearing its head as a supposed solution to the monetary union’s problems.

Metro Bank, the dog-friendly UK challenger bank which is launching branches while others close them, has had a rough time recently — with faults mainly of its own making. But whatever you think of the bank’s business model, it’s got one thing right.

We’ve all heard stories of people fiddling their expense accounts. But it’s more troubling when they try to fiddle someone else’s.

It is richly ironic that incoming measures meant to take Europe one big step closer to completing its Banking Union have ended up recognising that nothing of the sort actually exists.

Even credit geeks relegate accounting geeks to the back corners of the classroom. It’s proverbially dry, and shouldn’t affect real world issues, such as whether a company can deliver returns for its shareholders and pay its debts. But seemingly esoteric accounting changes can mean major real world consequences. It’s not just for the geeks; it’s time to get real about IFRS.

After some stunning successes in the CEEMEA primary bond markets last week, it will be tempting for syndicate teams to think that initial guidance for bonds going forward should be much tighter. But making that assumption could make the whole EM rally come unstuck.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is looking for a new chief executive. Don’t expect it to look very far.

In this round-up, US president Donald Trump extended the March 1 trade negotiation deadline, Bond Connect established an online information platform on the Chinese primary market and the Shanghai Stock Exchange finished soliciting public opinion on tech board rules

In this round-up, trade talks continued in Washington DC on Thursday and Friday, Greater Bay Area development plans focused on Belt and Road and RMB internationalisation and Norman Chan announced his retirement from the HKMA.

In this round-up, Malaysia's finance minister said his country may sell a Panda bond, the HKMA and the PBOC are working on cross-border mobile payments and Chinese issuers raised $8bn from the offshore market.

A potent mix of ingredients this week yielded some of the most fertile primary market conditions of the year across credit classes. Borrowers emerged from blackouts blinking into a dazzlement of demand. Now they are urged to do the deals they have long dreamed of before the market sours.

Sparebanken 1 Boligkreditt’s (Spabol) 10 year has the highest covered bond mark of all deals issued by any bank outside the eurozone this year on GC BondMarker. SEB issued the highest scoring Swedish deal and Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) issued the best ranking Canadian covered bond this year.