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The spat between Qatar and its GCC neighbours has reared its ugly head in the capital markets, with the possibility of Abu Dhabi informally boycotting Qatari-owned banks on the table. But neither side is likely to really feel the pinch.

The cryptocurrency market is sensationally hot. The pace at which new money is flooding into the market is staggering. Some of the hype might turn out to be justified, but there are plenty of ridiculous ideas getting swept up in the palaver. Here are nine of the best.

Chinese authorities are once again voicing their desire to get back on track with the reform agenda. But Bond Connect aside, there is not much evidence the powers that be are delivering on that promise — as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) rightly makes clear in its China country report.

Germany’s constitutional court has referred several questions to the European Court of Justice over whether the Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) is compatible with European Union rules prohibiting monetary financing by central banks. As was proved with Germany’s challenge of the European Central Bank’s Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT), there is again likely to be little effect from the move — and in any case, Germany’s judiciary should learn that at times of crisis, central banks should be left to wave their magic wands.

Despite the general torpor in deep summer markets, there’s a plentiful bid for debt bankers.

China’s FX reserves grow again in July, Harvest Fund Management lists the first ETF tracking FTSE Russell’s China index on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and Standard Chartered’s Renminbi Globalisation Index (RGI) falls in June.

British American Tobacco showed this week that it is time to stop claiming bond markets shut for summer.

Filecoin, one of the first cryptocurrencies to function in explicit compliance with SEC securities regulation, is set to launch on Thursday on a platform called Coinlist, a fund-raising platform to help start-ups run their own "initial coin offerings". The offering is a test of whether the controversial capital raisings can function in accordance with rules designed for shares and bonds.

I’m often surprised at the lengths to which banks will go these days to hire newbies.

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will add a new member to its rapidly growing treasury team, hiring a mainstay of the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

National Thermal Power Corp (NTPC) has become the second Indian company to seek long-term funding under the latest Reserve Bank of India guidelines — about five months after Power Finance Corp's similar, albeit unsuccessful, attempt. Given that precedent, NTPC will do well to keep its hopes in check.

Regulators bemoan the lack of comparability in capital standards — the main point of the leverage ratio, and Basel IV, is allegedly to make the capital ratios of different banks more comparable — but the easiest fix to the problem is disclosure, not output floors. Here are GlobalCapital’s suggestions: