The nature and likelihood of pre-failure external support for banks has been brought back into focus following an update to the methodology Moody’s Ratings uses to assess the Australian banking sector. Some banks do not believe the new analysis gives sufficient weight to the likelihood of external support before the point of failure – even for entities not deemed systemically important.

The KangaNews-Westpac Institutional Bank Corporate Debt Summit 2023 took place in Sydney in mid-October. A record number of delegates gathered to discuss the present and future of the Australian corporate environment, from the economic outlook and business conditions to the forthcoming impact of generative AI. In the mix was a steady but unspectacular corporate bond issuance environment that belies fundamental growth in domestic credit.

The Australian Securitisation Forum’s 2023 annual conference attracted a record number of delegates – well over a thousand attended – and offered its most wide-ranging agenda ever. The securitisation industry has navigated higher rates and increasing global uncertainty well to date, with record volume printing in 2023 and a notable uptick in collateral diversity. The road ahead may be tricky but the market is facing it with confidence.

KangaNews is proud to announce the winners of the institutional and deal categories in the KangaNews Awards 2023. At the end of another busy year in the Australian and New Zealand capital markets, KangaNews received votes from hundreds of market participants keen to recognise the achievements of 2023's most outstanding performers.

The KangaNews New Zealand Debt Capital Market Summit took place in Auckland in September, at a critical juncture for all of the local political, economic, market and environmental transition stories. Conversations at the conference were more wide-ranging than ever, with contributions from the political, business and markets sectors at a moment when the agenda for the coming years is being formed in real time.

Alarming headlines about office vacancy rates are the most visible sign of a downturn in the commercial property space. While cyclical and structural factors are weighing on the sector, though, investors and rating agencies continue to back the sound fundamentals of its Australian issuers.

Finding a way to reliably and meaningfully support environmental transition is perhaps the greatest contribution sustainable finance could make to achieving climate goals – and sustainability-linked bonds have been presented as critical tool for doing so. But flatlining issuance highlights what is perhaps the sector’s greatest challenge to date: how to agree, measure and monitor genuine transition ambition.

The primary focus of sustainable finance has traditionally been climate change mitigation: providing capital to decarbonise the economy and thus, it is hoped, minimise the scale of global heating. But with higher temperatures baked in – and more warming guaranteed to come – swathes of Australia increasingly need financing solutions to respond to climate change that is already here.

The KangaNews Sustainable Debt Summit 2023 featured its most wide-ranging agenda ever, taking in hot button topics across the sustainable finance landscape. Sessions covered carbon offsetting and trading, the rise of biodiversity as a focus area, the shift from mitigation finance to also include adaptation, as well as a raft of other critical areas of concern.

Conversations at the KangaNews Debt Capital Market Summit, which took place in Sydney on 20 March, naturally focused on the fallout from bank collapses that immediately preceded the event. The overall view was that relatively positive conditions in the fixed-income market would be reshaped but perhaps not fundamentally weakened by the emerging developments.