Online articles

  • A bridge to where?

    On 23 March, KangaNews hosted a live dial-in featuring some of the leading market economists covering Australia. It was the same illustrious panel that was to be a highlight of the KangaNews Debt Capital Markets Summit – which had been scheduled for the same day. In a rapidly changing world, the economists provided insight into a unique and vast, but practically unquantifiable, risk.
  • Anatomy of a taxonomy

    In March, Europe’s technical expert group on sustainable finance (TEG) delivered the final report on the EU’s taxonomy for climate change mitigation and adaptation. The taxonomy – and the green bond standard (GBS) that is expected to follow it – will have global ramifications for sustainable finance including opportunities and challenges for Australasian market participants.
  • Australian corporates push the boundaries of sustainable funding

    An extended issuance hiatus could slow progress, but Australian corporate borrowers continue to show willingness to engage with new sustainability-linked products. Sydney Airport and Wesfarmers have completed new sustainability-linked funding – the former as the first such issuer in any global bond market.
  • Buy side on hold

    The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) jumped into the fog of dislocated debt capital markets in March with an unlimited government and semi-government asset purchase programme. Local investors are contemplating a cascade of market consequences.
  • COVID complexity: impact on RMBS a tough call

    One easy conclusion to draw about the COVID-19 pandemic is that the measures put in place to fight it will cause unemployment to rise precipitously. Anticipating this, lenders have already begun offering loan payment holidays and other types of forbearance.
  • Debt market issuance trends as COVID-19 unfolded

    Australian and New Zealand borrowers sought market stability even as the economic consequences of COVID-19 reverberated. See insights from the first transactions across the government, global supranational, sovereign and agency, bank and securitisation markets.
  • Down time

    There is no doubt we are in a uniquely stressful period, professionally and personally. Our best hope is community spirit. In a rapidly changing but always frightening environment, talking to people in the market about the challenges we face has been heartening.
  • Illiquidity bites New Zealand credit market

    The New Zealand dollar corporate market appears to have battened down the hatches as COVID-19 has impinged on global markets. The specifics of local demand have shielded New Zealand from global volatility on occasion but market participants say the low-rate environment now leaves it more vulnerable to global moves.
  • Investa reaps the benefits of being a green frontrunner

    Investa Property Group’s green-debt strategy has matured, bringing realised cost benefits, the A$500 million (US$330 million) milestone in green loans and the prospect of all future bank-debt refinancing coming in green format. The company’s Sydney-based general manager, corporate sustainability, Nina James, and head of corporate planning and treasury, Lisa Story, discuss the merits of the strategy and its...
  • Investor survey: uncertainty reigns

    Fitch Ratings and KangaNews have been conducting the Fixed-Income Investor Survey since the first half of 2014. The 2020 iteration combines a deeply negative outlook with vast areas of uncertainty to produce the survey’s most worrying set of data ever.
  • Mutual ADIs position for the future

    The second annual KangaNews Mutual Sector Wholesale Funding Seminar took place in Sydney on 25 February. Discussions covered the sector’s performance and competitive position, access to wholesale funding markets, the potential for additional-capital issuance and how mutuals can incorporate technology to add efficiency in the treasury function.
  • Mutual banks’ funding evolution

    Going into the COVID-19 crisis, the Australian mutual and customer-owned banking sector already faced problems it had been grappling with for years, especially lower-for-longer rates. The industry gathered to discuss funding and capital challenges at a KangaNews event in late February.
  • Mutual interest

    Greg Hammond is perhaps still best known to Australian debt-market participants for his former role as a partner at King & Wood Mallesons (KWM). More recently, Hammond has become a key player in the mutual space, including as a director at G&C Mutual Bank and as the author of a report into the sector that has sparked much discussion on issues including capital and mutual entities. Hammond spoke to KangaNews...
  • Rating the banks’ readiness

    The Australian banking system should be better set up to deal with the economic consequences of COVID-19 than it was for the 2008-9 financial crisis. Government support and an accommodative regulator will also help. But rating agency commentary and actions underscore that there is no easy way out of an all-encompassing downturn.
  • RBNZ joins the QE choir

    The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) added its voice to the global chorus of central banks implementing unconventional monetary policy measures with the launch of a large-scale asset purchase (LSAP) programme on 23 March.This is designed to reverse tighter funding conditions caused by the COVID-19 crisis.
  • Two degrees of contagion

    As the world scrambles to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, markets are tasked with sorting out how measures to fight the virus will affect economies and finding their best path forward. A panel of market participants from New Zealand, convened via teleconference, agree the country is in a better position than almost anywhere but acknowledge that the outsized influence of global markets on the local economy – and the...
  • Unlimited ACGB purchases and direct bank funding to support RBA’s bridge

    The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) took unprecedented action on 19 March to provide a “bridge” to an expected economic recovery after the COVID-19 crisis. RBA governor Philip Lowe expects the support package to be required for the foreseeable future but says he can see better times on the horizon.
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