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President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker’s address on the state of the EU proposed more Europe as a remedy for most of what ails the bloc. A European finance minister, European Monetary Fund, and a tighter decision making system should give the Union a clearer direction. Maybe — but then he would say that.

Being a senior banker means a lot of boozy client lunches and non-stop travel in business class. But of course, before climbing up the banking ladder, we all have to go through the grind.

Malaysian companies have finally started taking steps towards sustainability, about three years after the country put together its SRI sukuk framework. The potential for growth is huge, and with the right encouragement and a conscious partnership between Islamic financing and sustainable goals, Malaysia can make itself a leading green market.

Late in the summer, Europe’s Single Supervisory Mechanism dished out its first punishment, fining Ireland's Permanent tsb for breaching regulatory limits on liquidity. But the fine’s small size indicates the bizarre, skewed priorities in how we punish banks for wrongdoing.

European banks are pushing the conversation on from simply meeting regulatory capital requirements towards optimising the cost of their capital stacks.

Saudi Arabia is reportedly planning to dilute its much touted National Transformation Program, a worrying sign for investors that confirms the doubts of observers who said the country’s Vision 2030 plan was too ambitious.

The goal of making the RMB a global commodities currency is not a job for those looking for quick successes. But recent moves from Russia and the Middle East have laid further bricks on the road to glory for China.

The People’s Bank of China scraps the requirement for financial institutions to set aside cash as reserves when buying foreign currency forwards, KraneShares launches new ETF to track companies in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects, and Bridgewater is said to be starting a new investment fund in China.

BRICS countries agree to establish a local currency fund at the summit in Xiamen, China’s FX reserves grew by 0.4% in August, and Standard Chartered adds foreign holdings of onshore assets as a metric to its Renminbi Globalisation Index (RGI).

The votes are in and three high quality issuers from last week's slew of public sector benchmarks are featured in this week's breakdown of the BondMarker results.

Nordea announced on Wednesday that it was moving its headquarters from Sweden, where it has been since it was formed through a series of mergers in 2000, to Finland, where it will be supervised by the European Central Bank, as part of the ‘Banking Union’ arrangements.