Japan

China’s top financial regulators coordinated statements boost stocks, Japan and China to resume currency swap agreement, and MoF announces additional details on personal tax cuts.

Public sector borrowers could bring dollar benchmarks next week ahead of the limited funding windows of November. Floating rate issuance was the main play in the sector this week, with Municipality Finance falling just short of full subscription as it brought the latest in the format on Thursday.

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) has mandated leads to roadshow the first ever Japanese covered bond. The RMBS-backed deal is expected to appeal to a broad universe of traditional investors and will set the tone for Japanese megabanks and other borrowers in what could be a rich supply vein for covered bond investors.

The benchmarking arm of Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) opened an online portal on Wednesday that gives market participants information on alternative risk-free rates designed to replace the Ibors, as well as forward-looking term rates based on the sterling overnight index average (Sonia).

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The Development Bank of Japan was able to tighten pricing on a €700m October 2025 sustainability bond this week, something not every issuer has found possible in the currency in the past few weeks. Meanwhile, the World Bank tapped an old friend for $200m with a green bond.

Mizuho Financial Group came to the market on Thursday with a five year senior bond in euros, just as Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group did on Monday. This week’s Japanese supply has taken the year’s total to a new record.

Beset by low interest margins and a falling population, Japanese banks have looked abroad for juicier returns and have matched this with overseas funding. As Jasper Cox reports, it is a strategy that has made them vulnerable on either side of the balance sheet.

It has been a momentous year in the yen market. Having long been seen as a very traditional and conservative part of the financial world, Japan has been embracing change.

GDP has bounced back in Japan, but the country faces some stubborn problems, some long-standing — such as low inflation, consumption tax rollout and an ageing population — and some new, including an increasingly protectionist US. Philip Moore reports.

The Japanese issuer base for socially responsible investments (SRI) is growing steadily, with some borrowers adding social and sustainability bonds to the already busy green bond market. On the buy-side, an investor base well versed over many years in SRI is also taking to the asset class.

From Tokyo to Osaka, from Kyoto to Sapporo, Japan is going green. Or at least, its bonds are. After issuing just one green bond in 2014, Japan has made itself home to repeat issuers of socially responsible investments and sowed the seeds for environmentally conscious funds. But as the country continues to turn its attention to environmental, social and governance issues, it still faces an uphill battle of education and reforms to build a sustainable bond market. Morgan Davis reports.