"Aha! You have been eating a beaver!"
A German banker spots a colleague sporting a new beard in Hong Kong. Something, perhaps, has been lost in translation
"He must have photos of the CEO with a goat or something"
An investment banker struggles to understand the continued career ascendancy of a former colleague
"I don’t badmouth competitors as a matter of principle. So I’m not going to name what bank I’m talking about. But come to the window – you can see its logo from here"
A Hong Kong investment banker declines to badmouth the competition and resorts instead to visual direction
"There’s only so many business lines that Norinchukin can buy"
A FIG specialist reveals why a lot of product areas or divisions that banks are looking to jettison will remain unsold, and will ultimately be closed down
"Banks are always saying there is no stigma in using the LTRO. Well, there should be"
One credit investor tries to inject some reality back into European FIG
"The LTRO is one big emergency-lending programme. The ECB is saying to the banks: ‘This provides time to delever – now get on with it’"
One banker tells it like it is
"The kind of horrible things that were being done before are still being done – just not as often"
One investor is sceptical that certain parts of the securitization market have really cleaned up their act
"The end result of all this is that people will be queuing for mortgages"
One observer is less than enthusiastic about the implications of Basle III and Solvency II
"They’re not doing their job – it’s not my job to be the bad guy and tell the owners it’s not worth ‘10’ it’s worth ‘6’."
An investor in Brazilian equities is not impressed