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European banks are nearly at the end of the road in terms of raising regulatory capital. Yet there is hardly a chance for anybody in the market to rest on their laurels. The value of having different capital products has come under close scrutiny, the calibration of the minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL) is still not set in stone, and market conditions are showing all the signs of having entered into the volatile final phase of the economic cycle. Issuers and investors gathered at Morgan Stanley’s offices in London this summer to discuss the best route forward towards capital compliance.

Greater clarity on Basel IV and MREL has given banks the confidence to go ahead and plan what their capital structures are going to look like over the next decade. The future is going to be all about optimising costs rather than raising buffers. Tyler Davies reports.

Europe has struggled to build a consensus among member states about when it should move towards completing the Banking Union. But the problem is becoming more and more urgent for lawmakers, which have been tasked with promoting the long-term growth and stability of the European financial sector. Tyler Davies reports.

European banks have benefitted from a near perfect market backdrop while building up layers of regulatory capital in recent years. But that is beginning to change at a senstive time for issuers, which are confronting tricky questions about refinancing old instruments. Capital planning is getting tough, just as tough market conditions have gotten going. Tyler Davies reports.

It has been another big year for the Single Resolution Board. For the first time, the public authority is giving out binding MREL requirements to the most important banks in Europe. Having a sufficient quantity and quality of MREL is seen as a key tool in making banks resolvable, so that they can face financial trouble without putting undue stress on the broader financial system and the taxpayer. But the SRB still has a way to go yet. It is updating its MREL policy for 2018 and wrestling with tough questions about what is the best possible design for a liability structure that can facilitate the proper use of the bail-in tool. GlobalCapital interviewed Dominique Laboureix, a member of the board and director of resolution planning and decisions at the SRB, about what he describes as “the journey to MREL”.

The Chinese president marks the fifth anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the US finance minister says China’s support for the renminbi does not count as currency manipulation, and the State Council clarifies its tax collection policy for Bond Connect investors.

The Republic of Philippines plans a comeback deal in the onshore bond market, the second batch of MSCI A-shares inclusions goes live today, and China’s bourses get a boost as they close in on buying 25% of Dhaka Stock Exchange.

Impact investing — a specialist field, outside mainstream financial markets, in which investors seek environmental and social outcomes — is burgeoning, leading promoters to raise their targets for the market’s growth. But at the same time, more conventional investors are also laying claim to the term “impact”.

SIX, an exchange company in Switzerland, is angling to take full advantage of the advent of distributed ledger technology (DLT). With its new digital asset platform, the company hopes to profit from easier securities settlement and a new method of raising capital that involves issuing cryptocurrency.

​New regulations have uncovered heaps of data that markets are struggling to handle. But as participants discover issues exist they did not realise existed, the data revolution will result in safer and more efficient markets for all.

It was not many weeks ago that your humble columnist hinted that his days of drinking were done. When will this promise finally be kept?

Environmental, social and governance investors have done a fine job of making their approach accepted and now mainstream in a money-driven industry. Along the way, they started saying it was all pragmatic, not about principles. That was a fiction, and under the pressure of climate change, it is being replaced with a more rounded philosophy. Jon Hay reports.