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After leaving the EU, the UK will face continuous and infinite choices over how aligned to remain for financial services. Meanwhile, London looks set to continue to leak activity to EU hubs, several of which are developing their own specialisms

As it spawns innovations everywhere from new issues to collateral management, is blockchain the technological key to digitising capital markets? And if it is, will that be through public versions such as Ethereum or private confidential networks? Or is this focus on distributed ledgers missing the point and the real need just to automate antiquated manual and bilateral processes? Julian Lewis reports

The transition from one set of interest rate benchmarks to another is conceptually simple. But it is also unprecedented and has deeper consequences than many realised when Libor’s abolition was announced in 2017. With contracts worth hundreds of trillions of dollars referencing the disgraced benchmark, even small errors will have vast repercussions. PPI mis-selling? You ain’t seen nothing yet. Richard Kemmish reports

The must-have new business line in capital markets is raising capital for companies that might be nowhere near coming to market. Tech companies stepping outside the private markets have stumbled this year, but banks still hope to take a slice of a fast-growing pie

An unusual note of optimism defines the attitude of Europe’s public sector issuers as they approach 2020. While many other markets are beset by fears of a slowdown in global growth, trade wars, and Brexit, SSA borrowers are confident in their borrowing strategies and loyal investor bases. Despite a change of face in the ECB’s top job, rates are still set to remain low for the foreseeable future. Accordingly, investors are having to grit their teeth to stomach the scanty yields on offer for euro SSA assets. Although SSAs are offering little in the way of yield, their place as pioneers of the evolving SRI market always ensures lively debate. In this roundtable, held in early November, market participants on both the buyside and the sell side favoured a more holistic assessment of issuers’ ESG profiles, rather than relying on labelled assets, but whether or not the ECB should take a role in promoting the SRI market through “green QE” divided the group.

Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal helped pull the US out of the Great Depression. Climate change is a bigger crisis and requires a similarly total response. But is the European Commission being ambitious enough? And will politicians, business and society accept the changes required? Jon Hay reports

2019 proved more fruitful for supranational, sovereign and agency borrowers than was expected in 2018 — in part thanks to a rejuvenation of the ECB’s asset purchase programme and a wholesale return to dovish monetary policies. GlobalCapital’s SSA team used its editorial judgment, with inspiration from GC’s world famous bond comments, to pick the top trades of the year. We strove to find deals that were not just the biggest, but that set pricing markers, were innovative and brave, or made an impression in other ways. GC presents the winners here. Congratulations to the issuers and banks involved.

After years with little in the way of technological improvements, momentum is finally building behind several projects that could reshape primary capital markets. These systems will undergo their first tests in the SSA market. Intriguingly, the winner could come from either the public or private sectors. Burhan Khadbai reports

A trio of recently launched supranational borrowers will be a frequent presence in 2020, as they look to cement their positions among the top names in the public sector bond market. Burhan Khadbai reports

The CLO is one of the more transatlantic sectors in securitization, and has grown more so in the past year as US managers make new inroads in Europe. However, both markets grapple with unique issues. In the US, a rocky corporate credit landscape has put the fear of widespread downgrades front and centre, while in Europe, the space is getting crowded and competition for collateral and persistent negative rates weigh on the sector. Both markets in 2020 are headed for an inflection point. Max Adams and Tom Brown report

Where securitization was once a prime hunting ground for financial sponsors and hedge funds, some of the largest asset management houses are now setting up units to beat the top predators of the capital markets at their own game, taking the other side of the securitization arbitrage

Each year brings another retreat for European investment banks, as their seemingly invincible US competitors edge further into the European market. While the Europeans are far from capitulating, the pressure is relentless. As Jasper Cox reports, they are trying to redefine success by concentrating on the markets and segments where they are strongest