Worley Financial Services revived the domestic transaction deal it had paused on 28 March due to volatile market conditions in the lead up to and wake of US tariff announcements. Worley’s deal, together with National Australia Bank’s return to domestic benchmark issuance, were major landmarks in the Australian primary credit market’s return after a dearth of primary supply exacerbated by public holidays in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region, as well as bank results.

Credit deal flow roared back to life in Australia after the holiday period and with trade-related volatility settling. Two of the three major banks that have recently reported results returned to domestic issuance, while a trio of corporate deals that had been put on hold finally came to market.

The Mutual bank and RACQ Bank have successfully completed senior-unsecured floating-rate note deals, raising A$32 million and A$80 million respectively. Deal sources say the transactions highlight investor confidence in well-established regional bank issuers and the value of such issuers having a commitment to maintaining diversified, stable funding programmes to defend against market uncertainty.

New Zealand’s Centre for Sustainable Finance has begun the process of sharing the work in progress of the national sustainable finance taxonomy ahead of formal consultation in the coming weeks and publication in November. The classification system will initially only cover the agriculture and forestry sectors though it will consider climate mitigation as well as adaptation and resilience criteria.