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While the prospects for Japan’s megabanks look more exciting than they have done for many years thanks to strong balance sheets and adoption of global regulations, the outlook for the overcrowded regional banking sector is more uncertain.

With Mark Carney succumbing to the charms of UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, Canada needed a new central bank governor. Rather than picking the heavily fancied Tiff Macklem, Carney’s senior deputy, the Bank turned to Export Development Canada’s president and chief executive Stephen Poloz. In one of his first interviews since taking on the job in early June, Poloz explains how exports will play an increasingly important role in the post-crisis Canadian economy, why this is an era of creative destruction and renaissance for the Canadian economy, the thinking behind his spaghetti sauce model and just why he is so confident that Keynes’ animal spirits will return. He spoke to EuroWeek’s Ralph Sinclair in early September.

For a country with a famously liquid domestic market, Japanese borrowers from a range of sectors have been refreshingly active in the international capital market over the last 12 months. The run looks set to go on as Japanese banks continue to increase their lending overseas and capital regulations hit home.

The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions is Canada’s top banking regulator and is widely viewed as having created a banking system that is the envy of the Western world. At the top of OSFI is Julie Dickson. She joined the agency in 1999 and, after serving a member of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision between 2002 and 2006, was appointed superintendent of OSFI in 2007 just as the first signs of the global financial crisis began to appear. Her seven year term is set to end next year but she has indicated that she will not extend it. She spoke to EuroWeek’s Philip Moore in early September about why Canada’s financial system has been so resilient throughout the crisis, whether the housing sector is overheating and just how regulators can keep on top of the new set of challenges that will surely emerge as global economic recovery gathers pace.

Canada’s commitment to a strong banking sector is now world famous. But its banking industry appears to have achieved the best of both worlds, maintaining stability without suffocating innovation or stifling growth. Philip Moore finds out how it has achieved this impressive balance.

Abenomics has driven a sharp spike in activity in the domestic corporate bond market. Meanwhile, the international sector is also beginning to feel the effects with bankers receiving an increase in enquiries from a diverse range of issuers keen to lock in low rates before they start to rise.

Before the crisis, Canada’s banks were derided for being too cautious. Now look at them. Having been ranked the soundest on the planet for the sixth year running, Canada’s banking system is the envy of the financial world. Philip Moore reports.

The emergence of a more Darwinian backdrop for Japanese companies combined with the ambitious growth plans of Prime Minister Abe means the future for Japanese equities has rarely been brighter.

It’s still early days. But Prime Minister Abe’s cocktail of monetary easing and fiscal stimulus, laced with proposals on long-overdue structural reforms aimed at stoking economic growth, appear to be working. And with Japan’s Diet no longer split, there is every reason to believe Abenomics will continue to work its magic.

For most foreign investors, pitifully low yields in the JGB market remain a powerful deterrent. Opportunity is therefore knocking for Japan’s other public sector borrowers including DBJ, JBIC and JFM who can offer an attractive pick-up over government bonds.

For sovereign, supranational and agency investors, Japan represents a mixed picture: scarcely any opportunity in yen, but strong participation in dollar globals, with a mature retail base ready to pick up structured or high yielding vanilla paper through Uridashi tranches. Leading SSA issuers explain to Chris Wright how they view the funding opportunity in Japan in this virtual roundtable that was held in mid-September.

In January, 1995, The Wall Street Journal proclaimed Canada to be “an honorary member of the Third World” and called the Canadian dollar the “northern peso”.