Private credit lenders have a software problem that could flash “fatal error” within three years as some 47% of loans are set to mature, according to Houlihan Lokey. 

Faced with a historic profit squeeze, banks’ credit traders have set their sights on one of the biggest costs weighing them down: the hundreds of millions of dollars they pay every year in trading venue fees.

The US Federal Reserve’s new Basel III endgame proposal for regulating bank capital will cut Common Equity Tier 1 capital requirements by 2.4% for the largest US banks. That is more than a 20-point swing from the initial Basel III proposal three years ago, which had called for boosting capital requirements by more than 19%.    

Nomura is investing to expand in macro trading as the Japanese bank bets that the volatility that has rocked financial markets in early 2026 is set to continue.

Australian dollar bonds have held up better than their investment-grade peers since the Middle East war began on February 28, according to a CreditSights report published on March 20.

Fitch has lowered New Zealand's AA+ long-term foreign currency rating outlook from stable to negative, citing the difficulty in delivering substantial reductions in government debt.

European high-yield funds saw outflows accelerate last week, according to the latest data, with redemptions reaching their highest level in nearly a year as the war in the Middle East and worries about private credit jolt investor sentiment. 

RedZed pulled its planned 16th RMBS offering on Friday, the indicative A$800m (US$570m) non-conforming RedZed Trust Series 2026-1, a casualty of elevated market stress in reaction to the Iran war.  

UK fintech Abound, formerly known as Fintern, managed to get its public ABS done in a volatile market, with its pricing reflecting the fact that the small and relatively young consumer lender was making its maiden transaction.  

Nationwide Building Society priced and retained a £1.75bn, three-tranche RMBS called Silverstone 2026-1 on Wednesday, in a continuation of its stock and drop strategy that it last executed nine months ago. 

It was supposed to be the year of the CLO. But first software names that populated many of the underlying assets were hit by AI disruption fears, and then the Middle East war kicked off – mostly freezing activity in the sector.

Geospatial "big data" is increasingly used in sustainable finance to map physical assets and link them to environmental and social risks, such as extreme weather, water stress and geopolitical hot spots.

HSBC has quietly revived term debt issuance from a regional Spanish development bank, arranging the first identified deal from Institut Catala de Finances in nearly 13 years, according to LSEG data. The modestly sized €15m private note, due at the end of May 2031, pays a coupon of 3.2%.

Kawasaki Heavy Industries unveiled a unique sustainable finance framework on Monday, with the aim of reducing emissions across its supply chain.

ING said that momentum will carry sustainable debt issuance through the volatility caused by the Iran war and expects the market to return to growth in 2026. 

Greece’s CrediaBank is seeking to boost liquidity and diversify its shareholder base with a primary follow-on that will see the lender raise around €300m.

Temasek-backed hospital chain Manipal Health Enterprises plans to file for an up to US$1bn IPO as early as this week, people with knowledge of the transaction said.

Data centre owner Nebius raised US$4bn from convertible bonds on Tuesday to back the massive capex programme required to deliver on AI infrastructure agreements, including a new US$27bn deal signed with Meta Platforms the previous day.

A successful IPO by hospital operator Sunway Healthcare Holdings has given a shot in the arm to Malaysia's equity capital market, paving the way for more issuers to raise funds this year. 

Banks have increased by US$1bn a US dollar loan portion of a debt package backing the buyout of video game maker Electronic Arts, while a concurrent dollar secured notes offering was decreased by the same amount, according to a source.

Electronic Arts looks set to deliver a stunning result for the leveraged finance capital markets, with investors looking past a war in the Middle East and a software sector ravaged by AI risk to throw more than US$20bn of orders into the debt backing the largest LBO in history.

European high-yield and leveraged loan default rates declined in February, driven largely by technical factors rather than an improvement in credit fundamentals, Fitch Ratings said.

Business development companies associated with asset management heavyweights BlackRock and Apollo Global Management are among the funds taking hits from pandemic-era loan vintages, adding pressure to private credit firms already grappling with concerns over portfolio quality and liquidity.

I played rugby as a schoolboy. I wasn’t too bad, playing for East Yorkshire a few times at under-16 level. My position was scrum-half, which meant I had a lot of the ball. And being in the thick of things, one soon learns to be nimble and quick-thinking to avoid being crushed by rampaging forwards.

Investment banks continue to expect strong first-quarter revenues. On Tuesday, Citigroup guided to mid-teens year-on-year growth in investment banking and markets revenues, and Bank of America guided to double-digit growth for both business lines. A few weeks ago, JP Morgan provided a similar upbeat message.

A dramatic but little appreciated rise in the volume of equity total return swaps is being accompanied by an erosion in the margins charged by bank prime finance desks to clients such as hedge funds.

The collapse of Market Financial Solutions follows a familiar and concerning pattern. According to documents submitted to London’s High Court at the commencement of its administration process, MFS may have double-pledged assets, potentially leaving a collateral shortfall of £930m. Loans to MFS totalled £1.16bn, and there was only £230m of “true value” available in the collateral accounts.