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HSBC and Standard Chartered are expecting lower profits and higher loan impairments this year due to the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak and an economic downturn in Hong Kong.

MUFG has put one of its co-heads of debt capital markets at risk of redundancy.

Investors who have been longing for the EU Taxonomy of Sustainable Economic Activities to tell them what is green are now realising that its arrival could make life tricky. From the end of next year, they will have to start reporting how sustainable all their portfolios are. It could prove an enormous headache. But a tiny company has developed a tool it claims can cut out a lot of the worries investors face in working out how to comply.

Standard Chartered’s global head of leveraged finance and structured solutions has left the bank, according to a source close to the situation.

Daiwa Capital Markets Europe is changing its senior bond market leadership.

Twelve of the largest global investment banks reduced their headcounts in equities by 10% last year, leading to one of the “steepest declines in years” in the number of investment bank employees, according to analytics firm CRISIL Coalition.

Intesa Sanpaolo took the market by surprise when it launched a takeover bid for UBI Banca this week. A successful deal could set off a long overdue wave of mergers and acquisitions within the Italian banking sector, which ECM bankers are hoping will be financed through a slew of new rights issues. Tyler Davies and Sam Kerr report.

UBS has made several senior staff in Spain redundant, including Madrid-based DCM managing director Daniel Vazquez Villanueva, GlobalCapital understands. The cuts came as part of a general redundancy round last year, but revenues from the region have been hurt by a hard stop in business from Santander after it decided not to hire former UBS investment banking boss Andrea Orcel as chief executive.

A lack of credible internal candidates and a desire for stability across its divisions led UBS to cast the net wider to find a successor to chief executive Sergio Ermotti. It has appointed ING CEO Ralph Hamers.

Alain Gallois will become Natixis’s global head of investment banking, replacing Mohamed Kallala. The latter is heading over to run global markets, with that role’s incumbent, Luc François, leaving the bank.

JP Morgan has promoted a whole new layer of leadership in its investment bank, reaching down to debt capital markets, equity capital markets and M&A. At the top of the tree, Carlos Hernandez has moved from being head of global investment banking to executive chair and has appointed new co-heads of global investment banking.

HSBC will not be making cuts to its equity capital markets or its equity trading capabilities after announcing the results of a strategic review on Tuesday. The bank will be reducing headcount in sales and research, but said that its execution ability in ECM will not be affected in any way.