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A panel set up by India’s Ministry of Finance to review the rules for companies borrowing money from overseas has made the radical suggestion of doing away with the current system and immediately liberalising the regime. Such an approach is likely to be too much of a shock to the country’s financial system. The government would be wise to adopt a more gradual approach.

European central bankers might be buying the market, but they still lack faith in the European project. That is the only conclusion to draw from the securities lending arrangements announced before Easter.

Glorious weather across much of Europe last week coincided with glorious events in the loan market, amid an M&A mystery and a triumph for sexual equality.

Mainland purchases of Hong Kong H shares exhausted the southbound daily quota of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect for the second straight day on April 9. The new enthusiasm among Chinese buyers will be a boon for many, but it is also a sharp reminder of the potential and risks associated with China’s opening.

This newspaper published an April Fool’s story last week about Greece issuing a perpetual zero coupon bond. After an incredible week in sovereign bond markets, is it that fanciful an idea? It’s time to gentrify Greek debt.

Mezzanine loans have barely featured in leveraged finance this year. While investors would still love to play, they are being pushed out as borrowers have too many cheaper options.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan paved the way for the creation of an expanded offshore rupee bond market this week, announcing plans to allow Indian corporates to tap a sector that has so far seen only sporadic issuance from a handful of international institutions, writes Christina Khouri.

Market volatility and investor uncertainty meant the Asian dollar bond market was heavily skewed towards investment grade deals in the first quarter of 2015. But the next three months could look very different. Many bankers are counting on a recovering Chinese property sector and a surge in bank capital trades to revive the high yield market, writes Narae Kim.

Two sets of long public holidays made it a stop-start first quarter for activity in Asia ex-Japan's equity capital markets. But with the festivities out of the way, bankers are now seeing their pipelines fill up again. The spotlight will be firmly on China and India for the next few months, writes John Loh.

The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has unleashed a raft of measures to stimulate borrowing in the mainland, but the benefits are yet to trickle down to smaller credits. This gap offers an opportunity to foreign lenders, and they are increasingly being seen in renminbi syndications onshore, writes Shruti Chaturvedi.

For all the opprobrium tossed at bankers in recent years, there are still plenty of people that admire the lifestyle. But we bankers (and ex-bankers) are humans too, and can’t help peeking over the side of the fence.

An attempt by a Chinese state-owned enterprise to seek a waiver of the requirement to hand over 10% of any public equity offering to the country's pension fund has put the spotlight on a rule that looks increasingly hard to justify. Exempting offshore deals would be a good step forward.