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* Royal Bank of Scotland is expected to launch its first credit card securitisation early next week. The floating rate deal, Arran One Ltd, will comprise $600m of three year bonds and $1bn of five year notes, with each tranche split into triple-A, single-A and triple-B portions. Price guidance is tightening, as the leads had hoped. Talk for the $525m three year triple-A tranche has moved from 15bp to 16bp over Libor last week to 14bp to 15bp. One source said the official range for the $875m five year senior piece was still 18bp to 20bp over, but another said it was now being marketed at 18bp to 19bp over.

Duff & Phelps this week placed the junior tranche of UK property company NHP Plc's first securitisation of care home leases on rating watch - down, following a deterioration in the tenants' operating profit margins. Launched in March 1997 by NatWest Markets, Care Homes No 1 Ltd comprised £60m of senior notes rated triple-A by DCR only and a £40m junior tranche rated BBB. Both classes are expected to be repaid as bullets in 2024 by a zero coupon swap with General Re Financial Services.

Rheinische Hypothekenbank this week launched a ground breaking securitisation of European commercial mortgages that takes cross-border structured finance to a new level and could herald a wave of interest in securitisation from Germany's mortgage banks. The Eu1.345bn deal, lead managed by Barclays Capital as bookrunner and Commerzbank as joint lead, parcels loans on 99 properties in Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain.

Credit Suisse First Boston this week hired 10 senior securitisation officials from Prudential Securities in a swift move to plug the gap left by the mass defection from its asset finance group to Deutsche Bank. Two weeks ago, Deutsche hired 12 of CSFB's most senior asset finance officials, including co-heads Jorge Calderon and Phil Weingord - but the German house is now believed to have taken more than 25 staff from the group in total.

Deutsche Bank this week launched its long awaited second securitisation of residential mortgages with a Eu1.764bn transaction through Haus 2000-1 Ltd. The bank's abstinence from MBS since its first mortgage deal in May 1998 is believed to be partly the result of Deutsche's decision to spin off its German retail banking business into Bank 24, its direct bank, forming Deutsche Bank 24.

European banking group Dexia announced this week that it will acquire US monoline bond insurer Financial Security Assurance (FSA) for around $2.6bn. The deal is driven by Dexia's ambition to become a world leader in providing finance for public sector entities. The group, comprising Crédit Local de France, Crédit Communal de Belgique and Banque Internationale à Luxembourg, claims to be the largest player in European public finance, with a 15% market share.

The mood in Latin America is strongly upbeat. The first three months of this year have seen a surge in issuance - initially by sovereigns but increasingly from a variety of corporates.

The analysis of off-market (i.e. non-par) swaps requires a set of discount factors with the effects of regular swap coupon payments removed.

ANOTHER week and another technology stock IPO breaks new price performance or volume records in Hong Kong. This week it was the turn of hongkong.com, which staged a remarkable debut on Hong Kong's Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) yesterday (Thursday), closing up some 260% at HK$6.75 from its IPO price of HK$1.88, the top end of a price range that was twice revised upwards during the international offering. Unlike the Tom.com IPO, there was no local public offering. But there was massive retail interest in the secondary market and 367m shares changed hands in a frenzy of trading activity, despite a falling market which saw the Hang Seng index drop 1.75% yesterday.

GOLDMAN SACHS and Bank of China International will begin the international roadshow for the placement of shares in PetroChina on Monday. In what has been an extremely thorough premarketing strategy, three teams have visited 274 potential investors across the globe over the past three weeks. The lead managers will present their findings to the Chinese authorities this weekend.

THE MANDATE to lead Korea Development Bank's (KDB) inaugural euro denominated transaction was awarded this week to Barclays Capital and Deutsche Bank. The two houses were chosen from a shortlist of European houses also comprising Credit Suisse First Boston, SG and Warburg Dillon Read. Given that the Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco) was forced to repurchase its debut euro denominated offering in the autumn of 1999 as a result of its impending privatisation, the new deal will mark the republic's only outstanding benchmark in the new currency.

THE REPUBLIC of the Philippines' reputation as an innovative and market savvy borrower looks likely to be tarnished later today (Friday) with the pricing of its $1.8bn combined cash and exchange offering. While the Ba1/BB+ credit should certainly achieve its size expectations and liability management of National Power Corporation (Napocor) debt, it is on course to do so at an extremely high price.