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The green bond market lets investors scrutinise the way issuers use their money, promoting good behaviour. Now, the focus is turning to the middle men: the banks. It is a welcome iteration, given their importance in financing either a green or brown future, but we must push them further.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has launched the first systematic process by an issuer to formally integrate environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations into choosing its bookrunners. Senior funding officials and sustainability bankers have welcomed the initiative as an important evolution in the use of ESG in capital markets, write Burhan Khadbai and Jon Hay.

BNP Paribas has provided €40bn of loans to corporate clients in the eye of the Covid-19 storm, amid claims that rivals are retrenching. David Rothnie asks if balance sheet support will result in bigger corporate finance fees.

HSBC and Standard Chartered are facing a backlash from investors and politicians after publicly supporting China’s planned security law for Hong Kong.

The US Federal Reserve’s whatever-it-takes approach to stabilising markets has had an unintended victim: serious discussions about debt relief in the emerging markets.

Members of the European Parliament have agreed on a series of temporary changes to the EU’s bank capital framework, including the introduction of a prudential filter for sovereign bond exposures. They stopped short of adopting amendments that would restrict the payment of additional tier one (AT1) coupons.

The European Systemic Risk Board is recommending that financial institutions do not equity dividends at all this year, so that they maintain high levels of capital. It acknowledged the risk that some firms could otherwise be stigmatised if they decided to restrict distributions amid Covid-19.

Angus Whelchel, who was global head of private capital markets and a managing director at Barclays, has left the bank, according to market sources.

Emerging market borrowers and lenders still lag developed markets on the transition away from the Libor, with the coronavirus pandemic hampering progress.

Each week, GlobalCapital journalists share some of the most interesting things they have been reading, from the profound to the quirky. This week has been marked by widespread protests across the US and the wider world, in reaction to an unarmed African-American man, George Floyd, dying while a policeman knelt on his neck in Minneapolis.

The Council of Europe Development Bank has recruited a new member to its funding team with an appointment from fellow supranational borrower, the European Stability Mechanism.

The head of the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) has sent a letter to banks confirming its guidance on how to provision for expected credit losses (ECLs) amid the coronavirus pandemic. The UK regulator also said that it would be asking for more information around loan loss provisions in an effort to identify "significant outliers" in the market.