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Banco BPI has signed a euro3 billion ($2.8 billion) Euro-MTN shelf via Deutsche Bank. The bank formed in 1998 after a merger between Banco Fonsecas & Burnay, Banco Borges & Irmao and Banco de Fomento e Exterior. The dealers off the facility are the arranger, ABN Amro, BNP Paribas, HypoVereinsbank, Merrill Lynch and Salomon Smith Barney.

A euro150 million ($141.33 million) trade was issued by Bank of Ireland yesterday with a coupon of 6.45% and a tenor of nine years. And European Credit (Luxembourg) did a 10-year euro12 million trade that offers 5.29%. The currency has been used in 248 trades this year raising over $22 billion-worth for its issuers. Only dollar has had a busier start, with over $27 billion having been issued so far. Salomon Smith Barney is leading the euro league table, with just over $3 billion-worth of business according to MTNWare.

Bank of Montreal has added Merrill Lynch as a dealer to its $3 billion Euro-MTN programme. The facility was set up in 1996 and was co-arranged by the issuer's London branch and Lehman Brothers.

Barclays Bank is believed to have launched a highly unusual yen denominated collateralised bond obligation, backed by a pool of mostly US asset backed securities. The ¥17.25bn ($147m) deal is a fully funded synthetic CBO. Lead manager Barclays Capital declined to comment, but the deal appears to satisfy two objectives. Assuming all the notes are sold to third parties, Barclays will reduce its exposure to the assets to 3% of their face value, and may be able to earn an attractive spread on that equity risk.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision this week laid out its final recommendations for a new capital accord that should be finalised by the end of this year. In following closely the proposals the committee announced last June, the global banking supervisory authority has made good on its promise to align more closely the risk weightings of assets with credit quality. In a victory for the banking industry - particularly in Europe - the committee has agreed that banks wishing to use certain sophisticated internal risk assessment models as their basis for allocating capital will be allowed to do so, provided that their national banking supervisors agree.

After eighteen months of negotiation and lobbying from banks, the Basel committee on banking supervision has issued amendments to its 1988 Basel accord. And banks have come out the winners in the proposed amendment. "These are massive, massive changes," says one Euro-MTN dealer. The proposed amendment classes banks according to their sophistication. The most sophisticated banks would be allowed to use their own internal credit scoring systems to decide for themselves how much capital they need to guard against the risk of loss on loans, bonds and other types of credit exposure. "Within reason it bodes well for 100% risk-weighted issuers," says the head of a Euro-MTN desk at a US house. "But highly-rated corporate issuers rarely tend to come to the floater market - which is what banks are interested in - because they tend to get such an aggressive bid for fixed rate," he continues. Tarik Senhaji, SG's head of Euro-MTNs, says: "Double-A banks are seeing a good five-year bid, probably as a result of the proposal." But other dealers point out that it will be a long time before these changes start affecting the market. "These changes are meant to be implemented in 2004. But that's if we are lucky. Every time the Basel committee comes out with a proposal it gets pushed back." And Senhaji admits it will be difficult to put into practice: "The BIS proposal makes more sense from an academic perspective. But I don't know if it's going to be that easy to implement - it will be a huge revolution for everyone."

Beta has issued its longest-dated dollar trade since signing its programme in 1991. The 10-year trade is in fact the longest-dated dollar trade from any of the Citibank Credit Structures vehicles. Beta's deal matures on January 31 2011. According to MTNWare, it pays 7.05% on a quarterly basis.