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The European Central Bank is encouraging investment banks to keep up their market making activities during the coronavirus pandemic by offering them temporary relief on their capital requirements for market risk.

Governments in developed countries have rushed to introduce measures to support companies, large and small, battling with the effects of coronavirus lockdowns. But they are all doing it differently, throwing a spotlight on the relationships between public and private sectors in each country and inviting the question: which is the gold standard? Jon Hay, Silas Brown and Mariam Meskin report.

Banks and other private creditors are under pressure to follow the lead of the Group of 20 nations and suspend debt service payments by the poorest countries, as lobby groups urged world leaders to go further and cancel outstanding loans. Phil Thornton reports.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is looking at redeploying assets held by advanced economies to help developing ones, its head said on Thursday. But she admitted the Fund’s shareholders had failed to agree on a deal to issue billions of new capital. Phil Thornton reports.

More hedge funds are looking into entering the market making industry, following in the footsteps of Citadel Securities.

US banks this week reported stellar returns from trading and underwriting in the first quarter, even as the bottom line was hit by gigantic writedowns and reserves for credit losses, as the economic and financial disruption from the coronavirus crisis took its toll.

The coronavirus pandemic has put some major market regulation on ice, but not the Ibor transition, the most far-reaching financial reform still on market participants’ to-do lists.

Banks have been building their financial sponsor coverage teams on a record period of deal making. Now they have a different fight on their hands, but bankers are playing down the threat of a 2008-style meltdown, writes David Rothnie.

Insolvency and restructuring practitioners have been catapulted into an unprecedented whirlwind of activity by the coronavirus, as even healthy companies suddenly find themselves staring over a financial precipice. In the UK, the government will change insolvency rules to ease these situations, but specialists believe there is more to be gained by using existing laws better.

US banks ramped up reserves for credit losses, expanded credit lines and enjoyed bumper trading and debt underwriting volumes in the first quarter, according to results released on Tuesday and Wednesday.

JP Morgan has taken an $820m writedown on its book of bridge loans, nearly halving its investment banking revenues for the first quarter. However, the bank is not hurrying to exit these positions. Chief executive Jamie Dimon said “a couple” of its bridges could be syndicated this quarter if conditions are supportive.

Speculation is building ahead of the International Monetary Fund spring meetings this weekend that the multilateral lender is poised to inject much-needed liquidity by printing billions of its own currency, Special Drawing Rights.