Rabobank

This week was the busiest of the year so far for bank senior supply in euros, as issuers took advantage of strong market conditions after posting full year results.

Rabobank found good demand for a 12 year senior bond in the euro market this week, as it took advantage of rise in rates to land at a record tight spread.

CaixaBank and BayernLB were able to sail through fair value with green non-preferred senior deals this week, bucking a trend for rising new issue premiums in 2021. Bankers say a lack of supply is finally helping borrowers to exert more power over their pricing.

BayernLB was able to close the books on its debut green bond after only three hours on Wednesday, as investors piled into the tightly priced transaction.

CaixaBank found €3.7bn of demand for a green senior bond on Tuesday, as investors revealed their hunger for new paper. BayernLB could follow with a green deal of its own against the improving backdrop in euros.

Met Group, the Swiss energy trading company, has signed €915m of short term loans, reducing its facility for the first time for years, after ABN Amro, one of its main lenders, pulled out of this kind of financing. Met found two other banks to replace ABN but wanted to focus on price with the deal, rather than size.

In a rare sign that environmental campaigners are having an impact on the financial industry, the burden of financing the Ecuadorian Amazon oil trade has shifted between banks in the past six months. But it is clear the banking industry is supporting the trade in more ways than have yet been uncovered.

Bank bond spreads widened on the back of negative sentiment this week, but a handful of lenders were still able to take advantage of a constructive backdrop in the new issue market.

Smurfit Kappa, the Irish paper and cardboard packaging company, has signed its first sustainability-linked loan for €1.35bn, at the same time as setting new targets to reduce its carbon footprint and water use and employ more women.

Practitioners believe 2021 could be the year when sustainable finance finally breaks out of the narrow confines it has inhabited so far and spreads more widely across the economy.

Yankee issuers stormed into the US dollar market to lock in record low levels of funding, despite this week’s turmoil in Washington, DC.

The Swiss National Bank said it is “willing” to increase the scope of its foreign exchange interventions to keep the Swiss franc’s value down, despite the US Treasury labelling it a ‘currency manipulator’ this week.