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Crédit Agricole has appointed Mariano Goldfischer, formerly in charge of global syndicate, to be head of global markets for the UK.

Samantha Huggins has joined BTIG, in the latest hire by the firm for its equities team in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

In the latest sign that the UK’s capital markets will diverge from the EU’s next year, the head of the European Commission’s task force for relations with the UK, Michel Barnier, called the UK’s demands regarding financial services as “unacceptable”.

Sir Ronald Cohen, one of the UK’s foremost private equity entrepreneurs, believes the Covid-19 crisis is an opportunity to transform western capitalism into a socially responsible enterprise that values a company’s impact on society as much as its profits. Cohen talks to GlobalCapital about the tremendous challenges facing the global economy, and how it can be transformed for the better.

Post-crisis reforms have broadly succeeded in ending the concept of ‘too big to fail’, according to the Financial Stability Board, which argued in a report on Sunday that total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC) rules were making the global banking system more efficient.

DirectBooks, which plans to bring a new issuance platform for bond markets, has not ruled out the possibility of a partnership with other providers.

The UK’s new insolvency law came into force on Friday, and lawyers have been spending the weekend picking through its 250 pages to understand the implications. While some have welcomed it, others pointed out that in its haste to push it through Parliament, the government has introduced several changes that skew the balance between various kinds of lenders which hitherto had been treated equally.

The Federal Reserve has come under fire for failing to oblige banks to stop paying dividends at a time of extreme economic uncertainty. The results of its latest stress test showed this week that a quarter of US banks could approach their minimum capital ratios if the coronavirus pandemic leads to a double-dip recession.

Asif Sherani and Souhail Mahjour are taking on additional responsibilities in HSBC’s debt capital markets syndicate team.

The weakness of communication along the capital markets chain is one reason why so little progress has been made on greening the economy.

The European Investment Bank is going through intense discussions — both internally and externally — about its plan to become the EU’s Climate Bank. NGOs are accusing it of “backtracking” and demanding it sets sustainability criteria for the companies and banks it works with, but the EIB insists it is listening to concerns and will reveal more of its plans later this year.

The Covid-19 outbreak has spurred at least one change for the better. Five banks have established dedicated ESG teams since the start of the pandemic to meet demand from clients committed to being more conscientious, writes David Rothnie.