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Emerging Markets can reveal that North Korea was rebuffed by Beijing in its attempt to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank because it was unable to hand over a proper snapshot of the hermit state’s economy and finances

China, keen to see its influence grow in Latin America, will be hoping that Argentina turns out to be a better bet than Venezuela

Agence France Locale scored a strong success with its debut bond this week, as investors lapped up a rare opportunity to buy core eurozone paper with a healthy spread.

Deutsche Bank’s head of Swiss DCM, Maroan Maizar, recommended this week that the Swiss authorities ban retail investors from buying Swiss contingent convertible bonds, ensuring that only the “best” investors have access to such instruments.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is meeting technology start-ups this week, in a bid to understand their many concerns about listing on domestic exchanges. With rules that appear designed to make things as difficult as possible for such firms to execute IPOs, market watchers say the regulator’s move is a big step forward in boosting the country’s equity capital markets, writes Rashmi Kumar.

The Vietnam government is aiming to sell a record amount of shares in state-owned enterprises (SOE) this year, in a bid to hasten a reform process that has dragged on since the 1990s. But sceptics doubt it will meet its targets, as its equity capital market remains bogged down by quirky IPO procedures, valuation issues and unwilling participants, writes John Loh.

Export-Import Bank of India (India Exim) priced a landmark transaction this week, raising $500m from the country’s first dollar-denominated green bond. With strong government support and more companies looking to issue, the green initiative is expected to blossom in India, writes Rev Hui.

It’s easy to see that Asia’s frontier markets are used to fighting for investor and development bank attention. These countries take every opportunity to showcase the value of investing in their up-and-coming economies, but sometimes the pitches are less than graceful.

We are pleased to announce the categories for GlobalCapital’s 2015 Bond Dinner. Here you will find the link to this year's poll, as well as PDF and Excel copies of the rules and categories.

Social responsibility means accountability, and accountability requires transparency. Even where socially responsible issuers show what they have funded, investors need comparisons to prove they have done some good.

Greece’s euro-denominated future hangs in the balance. Greater integration and less sovereignty is needed to save the European project, but the ideological gap between Greece and Germany shows it will be nearly impossible to achieve.

Investors in bank senior unsecured bonds have sailed through most of the crisis believing they are safe from haircuts if the bank fails. They’ve been wrong before, and as time goes on, it should be ever more clear that they face real credit risk.