Free content

Venezuela has become the first sovereign nation to launch a cryptocurrency. While few outside Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro’s administration are impressed by the pioneering venture, others are expected to follow suit nonetheless, write Lewis McLellan, Costas Mourselas and Oliver West.

GlobalCapital understands the Swiss Exchange is considering changing the way a bond becomes eligible for the Swiss Bond Index. This will not only be a significant development, but a welcome one.

European high yield bond investors are up in arms at being asked to pay to be members of the European High Yield Association (EHYA), a division of industry body, the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME). They should pay up, if not shut up.

The Global RMB Poll 2018 runs from February 26 to March 30. Corporations, financial institutions and investors from around the world that have used renminbi services are welcome to participate.

China’s FX watchdog loosens its grip on FX forward settlement, HSBC becomes the first foreign bank to handle an individual RMB remittance transaction following a rule change in January and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stopped an attempt by Chinese investors to acquire the Chicago Stock Exchange.

Disallowing the use of senior bail-in debt as collateral at the ECB has alarmed some parts of the market — but discouraging banks from buying other banks' debt should be applauded.

Since cryptocurrencies started to go legit, many in the market assumed legitimate uses for the technology would marginalise criminal uses that characterised bitcoin’s early development. This was naïve. Venezuela’s foray into the sector show that avoiding the constraints of the mainstream financial system remains at the heart of the cryptocurrency value proposition.

Albaraka Turk scored a solid first last week when it issued Turkey’s first Basel III compliant additional tier one bond, but while this marks progress, it will take one of the country’s larger banks to establish a true benchmark.

We are excited to announce that the GlobalCapital Bond Awards Poll is now open.

The Schuldschein market's reputation as a gentlemanly club is at risk of diverging from reality. Competition is becoming fiercer and arrangers are employing every weapon in their armouries to win mandates. This is how capital markets behave — but the Schuldschein market should not follow.

Deal-contingent hedging can be a great way to hedge risks associated with mergers and acquisitions, but a number of pitfalls can flummox first time users of these specialist derivatives.

Are poker skills correlated with deep insights into the financial markets? I certainly hope not.