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European banks have rolled up their sleeves and got on with the job of issuing loss-absorbing instruments to meet the new capital demands of Basel III, with another €80bn of capital printed across additional tier one (AT1) and tier two in 2014. AT1 accounted for 48% of capital volume in 2014 as banks made strides towards filling their 1.5% of risk weighted assets bucket. Still more banks have made debuts in the AT1 market in 2015 and many early issuers are expected to return to take advantage of cheaper pricing later this year.

Europe’s idiosyncratic post-crisis bank capital structures may be tough to navigate, but investors have wised up and with volatility declining, real money is running out of excuses to stay away from additional tier one, writes Tom Porter.

Just as Europe’s banks were really getting stuck in to their post-crisis regulatory capital requirements, rulemakers have thrown them another curveball that will define issuance patterns for the rest of the decade, writes Tom Porter.

Pilot fishing has begun for what could be one of the highest profile IPOs of 2015 – that of Poste Italiane, the Italian postal service.

Peab, the Swedish construction firm, has refinanced a Skr5bn (€530m) revolving credit facility and reduced the size to Skr4bn (€426m).

Bologna Airport priced its IPO on Wednesday night after achieving a three times oversubscription, despite this week’s difficult market backdrop.

Friday was a great day for Flow Traders to make its stockmarket debut. You might almost think they were traders. The Euro Stoxx 50 index opened 1.6% up as hopes rose of a debt deal for Greece, and doubled that gain by the afternoon. With that wind in its sails, Flow Traders zoomed up 14%.

Investors are putting their money firmly on hopes that Greece will reach a deal with its creditors over the weekend. Italy is set to be the first to benefit from the resulting plunge in eurozone periphery yields.

The UK Debt Management Office has announced which banks will be on its next bond syndication, a conventional Gilt with a maturity of at least 40 years, scheduled for the second half of July.

Czech corporate Severomoravské vodovody a kanalizace Ostrava (SmVak) saved CEEMEA from a washout week on Friday, launching an international Reg S local currency deal.

Opportunities await issuers in the ringgit bond market, as the currency can allow them access to an open and educated investor base, strong liquidity and savings, say bankers. But while the costs are low and the benefits numerous, the prospects may be limited to higher rated names looking to print smaller deal sizes.

Bankers are sharpening their elbows in the Middle East as competition ramps up. GlobalCapital caught up with HSBC’s head of capital markets and financing for MENA and Turkey, Selim Kervanci, to see how the lower oil price is affecting the region’s capital markets, and the next drivers for development of its bond markets.