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The European Commission appears to be pushing ahead with plans to launch sovereign bond-backed securities, according to a draft document seen by GlobalCapital. While the intentions behind the product are noble, this is the wrong way to fix the eurozone’s sovereign-bank nexus.

Last week's crop of benchmarks have been subjected to the scrutiny of the BondMarker voters and, on the whole, they were pretty impressed.

The burgeoning cryptocurrency market is facing new questions as a Commissioner at the US derivatives regulator asked what “actual delivery” of a digital currency meant, in the context of derivatives rules.

The Wild West days are not over in the cryptocurrency market, but the shoots of a more civilised and reliable market are beginning to poke through.

For politicians looking for policy tools, bank capital regulations are a blank canvas. But using prudential regulation to direct lending to favoured causes lacks transparency, obscures difficult decisions and piles up risks.

Reflecting on the run on the Rock, a full decade on.

International investors are recognising the progress that Abenomics has made in turning around Japan’s recently moribund economy. The long-awaited acceleration in domestic demand is finally taking place, while business confidence is high. But can this progress be maintained while inflation and government finances remain weak and North Korea pushes the region towards conflict?

Although the dynamics of the basis swap can make the yen market a volatile source of funding for international borrowers, the arguments for accessing it are compelling.

Japan’s banks have passed the stability test. Now their challenge is to build up profits — a difficult task when considering negative interest rates and ultra-thin lending margins.

While Japan remains the world’s largest creditor, its investors are not making much of an impact in the euro and dollar SSA bond markets. Instead, they are making their presence felt in Australian dollars and, as ever, the Uridashi market.

Despite disappointing volumes this year, from both a supply and a demand standpoint, the arguments for issuing in Pro-Bond format are as relevant as they have ever been and the longer‑term outlook for the market remains healthy. TLAC and MREL capital issuance could be particularly heavy — and lucrative.

Japanese retail investors have been keen buyers of ‘themed’ or ESG (environmental, social and governance) bonds for many years, and institutional investor appetite for green or socially responsible issuance is now growing rapidly. This is creating a wealth of opportunities for international and local issuers in the ESG market. A multinational panel of issuers in the global and Japanese capital market gathered to discuss the prospects for increased Japanese investor demand in this fast-expanding area.