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A proposed implementation of the Volcker Rule may have passed a Commodity Futures Trading Commission vote on Wednesday, but two Commissioners and a handful of market participants are questioning the timing and form of the proposals.

In 2011, 580+ delegates came together to explore Brazilian opportunities! In April 2012, you could be among the leading investors and fund managers addressing advances in market regulation, infrastructure, quantitative trading and asset allocation.

Make haste! There are only a few more days to vote for EuroWeek Asia’s Annual Awards.

The future of Royal Bank of Scotland’s ambition as a global investment bank will be decided in the coming weeks. Don’t write the firm off. RBS was not strong in the threatened business lines anyway. It remains a top player in debt. If it decides to make a go of it, RBS has a good chance of thriving as a debt-based investment bank.

Chinese New Year is just around the corner, and ECM bankers in the region know that means they cannot expect any big IPOs over the next few weeks. But while they are right to turn to block trades to keep themselves busy, caution is a must: the market is on shaky ground, and too many aggressive deals at once could damage sentiment for the rest of the quarter.

If the European Parliament is writing bail-outs into CRD IV, what happened to the last four years of political and regulatory debate?

The Greek debt burden, we are often told, is a trifle compared to the rest of Europe’s debt woes. But the Private Sector Initiative, first touted in the summer and designed to help banks and sovereigns alike through the crisis, is still causing headaches for participants. It threatens to devastate all attempts to restore confidence to markets.

Defining liquid assets is always going to be a problem; the whole concept is flawed. The best regulators can do is use the Supreme Court’s standard on obscenity – “I know it when I see it”, in the words of Mr Justice Potter. Results otherwise are likely to prove perverse.

Sovereign default in Europe is as old as finance. Bankers and states have been locked in a tussle for centuries. But who has got the best of it? Defaults damage lenders and borrowers, but both usually survive, if not in the same form then in the same spirit.

Swiss francs has been a backwater for corporate bonds, but no longer. Displeased by the sovereign and banking crises, Swiss investors want corporate debt above all — and they are much more broad-minded about ratings than they used to be. Corporate treasurers should book a flight to Zurich, while the craze lasts.

— Eddie Wang, head of fx structuring, Asia fixed income markets at Crédit Agricole in Hong Kong, explaining the rush by corporates in Asia to hedge U.S. dollar/Chinese renminbi exposure via bonus non-deliverable forwards.

EuroWeek is accepting votes for its Asian Awards 2011 until January 15. Below is a full list of award categories.