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Dr Jörg Kukies, State Secretary for Financial Market Policy and European Policy at the German Federal Ministry of Finance, speaks to GlobalCapital’s Managing Editor, Toby Fildes, on Covid-19, European policy and Germany’s financial markets.

Generals, and financial regulators, are always fighting the last war. So it proved when the coronavirus slammed into international markets in mid-March. Many of the tools developed in the 2008 financial crisis were deployed to great effect by central banks. The corners of the financial markets that propagated weakness in 2008 passed the test of 2020. But new risks were thrown up, forcing a new round of improvisation. What lessons will be drawn from the Covid-19 crisis?

Policymakers have responded with impressive speed and purpose to ensure that a global health crisis does not turn into a global financial crisis. But what happens now that their cards have been played, and is there a plan for what to do once the great lockdown is lifted?

Lockdowns raised big questions about how capital markets operate. Trading floors — their beating heart — emptied even as the need for the financial blood they pump round the system rocketed. But markets thrived. Now Ralph Sinclair asks how the experience will change the future of work in capital markets.

John Hempton, the Australian short seller and self-styled eccentric, believes fraudulent companies will soon become evident in the corporate rubble left by the coronavirus pandemic. Hempton, who has bet against 1,100 companies over the course of his career, explained how his hedge fund Bronte Capital goes about finding rotten eggs in business and finance.

The UK cannot have unconditional, direct access to the EU’s financial markets when it fully leaves the bloc, according to a draft opinion set to be adopted on Friday by the European Parliament's committees for international trade and foreign affairs.

H4, a fintech firm which has received investment from JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Barclays and Linklaters, is giving capital market participants the chance to move document creation and storage into the 21st century, chief executive Joe Seifert tells GlobalCapital.

The green bond market lets investors scrutinise the way issuers use their money, promoting good behaviour. Now, the focus is turning to the middle men: the banks. It is a welcome iteration, given their importance in financing either a green or brown future, but we must push them further.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has launched the first systematic process by an issuer to formally integrate environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations into choosing its bookrunners. Senior funding officials and sustainability bankers have welcomed the initiative as an important evolution in the use of ESG in capital markets, write Burhan Khadbai and Jon Hay.

BNP Paribas has provided €40bn of loans to corporate clients in the eye of the Covid-19 storm, amid claims that rivals are retrenching. David Rothnie asks if balance sheet support will result in bigger corporate finance fees.

HSBC and Standard Chartered are facing a backlash from investors and politicians after publicly supporting China’s planned security law for Hong Kong.

The US Federal Reserve’s whatever-it-takes approach to stabilising markets has had an unintended victim: serious discussions about debt relief in the emerging markets.