Online articles

• A new licence

  It is extraordinarily hard to unpick the issues around governance, ethics and social licence to operate in the financial sector. Banks – especially the majors – clearly have a lot of work to do to re-establish public trust in the wake of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry. Data from the US’s increasingly partisan political environment makes me wonder...

• Activity review

  KangaNews’s transaction data and intermediary league tables show some interesting trends from Australasian bond issuance in 2018. Outright volume was robust, including several issuance records. But while the New Zealand market got broader, Australia struggled for issuance diversity.

• Australia still in vogue for USPP investors

  In late January, KangaNews hosted – with MUFG – its annual roundtable discussion with US private placement (USPP) investors and Australian issuers in Miami. Investors remain positive about credits from the Australasian region and see no reason for the record supply pipeline from Australian and New Zealand issuers in the last two years to decrease. In fact, the buy side points to its flexibility...

• RBNZ adds colour to a developing picture

  Local market participants are thinking through the likely consequences of increased capital ratios for banks proposed by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) at the end of 2018. In an exclusive interview with KangaNews, Geoff Bascand, the RBNZ’s Wellington-based deputy governor and general manager, financial stability, says any wider market consequences are a necessary step in ensuring the...

• SSA sustainability trail blazers

  Global supranational, sovereign and agency issuers continue to strike new ground in the Australian dollar sustainability-bond sector. A trio of deals printed in January highlight the sector’s leadership position, offering Australia its largest-ever SSA green bond, further supply to the nascent social-bond space and a rare renewable-energy bond.

• The reference-rate conundrum

  The impending likely demise of global interbank offered rates has sparked many questions for the Australian market. Its local credit reference rate appears to be relatively robust – though its status is not unimpeachable – while the importance of cross-border issuance to Australian borrowers requires engagement with international IBOR developments. KangaNews and Commonwealth Bank of Australia brought together key...