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Despite a year of turmoil, many bankers have a spring in their step, writes David Rothnie. They are rushing to get involved in the boom in special purpose acquisition companies (Spacs).

The former head of global debt capital markets origination at Deutsche Bank has linked up with 40 of his former colleagues to form a capital markets advisory firm very much in the spirit of the times — as a network that operates online — as the coronavirus pandemic forces a rethink of traditional investment banking models.

Credit Suisse has hired Bank of America's former investment bank boss Christian Meissner to link its wealth management business with the investment bank.

The coronavirus crisis will continue to lead to divergence in economic fortunes, and that will play out in European capital markets as well.

The European Central Bank's Isabel Vansteenkiste welcomed a proposal for green Targeted Longer-Term Refinancing Operations (TLTROs) on Monday, but talked through what she saw as some concerns with the idea.

Julia Hoggett, director of market oversight at the Financial Conduct Authority, said that market participants need to be careful about insider information, and that companies should be overseeing staff use of private devices at a time when many are working from home.

Origin, a fintech firm involved in the bond issuance process, has raised Series A capital from Deutsche Börse's Clearstream and the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. The two investors said they want to automate the Eurobond issuance process from origination to settlement.

A top-level reshuffle suggests that Barclays chief executive Jes Staley is not going anywhere, but raises fresh questions about whether the bank’s top-five ambitions are achievable, writes David Rothnie.

A group of some of the UK's biggest asset managers, professional bodies and banks are supporting a proposal for an SRI-themed UK sovereign debt product to deliver environmental and social benefits as part of the country’s recovery from the pandemic.

Siegfried Ruhl, the head of funding and investor relations at the European Stability Mechanism, will be seconded to the European Commission later this month as it gears up for its vast borrowing programme.

Suggestions that the UK government is considering a consultation process to give it the power to ban foreign firms from listing on the London Stock Exchange have horrified equity capital markets bankers.

NatWest plans to contact around 3,500 of its corporate clients from Thursday to inform them about the end of Libor as a benchmark and what their options and next steps are, as a recent survey showed that the vast majority of companies have not made any tangible efforts towards moving debt facilities to risk-free rates.