Overzealous risk appetite, sloppy credit selection, herd mentality and tight yields despite a weak growth backdrop – fears are growing that the European high-yield market is sowing the seeds for a correction, despite the positive technicals of the market.

Development of technology combined with reduced bilateral credit friction has contributed to the fragmenting of liquidity into many different pools. These developments have added to the complexity of currency trading, say Toby Cole, managing director FX client advisory group and Jeremy Smart, global head of electronic distribution at RBS.

Use of China’s renminbi is increasing rapidly despite the country’s slowing economy and the time is now for the new leadership to push it as a major international currency. John McCormick, CEO, Markets & International Banking and Chairman, RBS Group, APAC, explains.

New industry efforts are in the offing to tackle the much-lamented shortage of global collateral, triggered by tighter regulation and strong structural demand for perceived safe assets. One such innovation is the Liquidity Alliance, which brings together central security depositories in Australia, Brazil, Spain and South Africa – but it’s an uphill battle.

Finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram has battled valiantly to feed the nimble elephant that is the Indian economy at its best, restarting its stalled fiscal and liberalization agenda. But market expectations are sky-high ahead of the election year and recent evidence that the economy has run out of steam.

A banking crisis, a sovereign debt crisis, an existential crisis. That was the easy part. After weathering multiple disasters, the spectre of a regional growth crisis that threatens to further exacerbate the region’s woeful debt burden has come to the fore after the shock contraction in German growth in the fourth quarter.

The two main pieces of regulation about to hit European financial markets and the derivatives market, in particular – Mifid and EMIR – have sparked fears over their unintended consequences to collateral velocity, liquidity and transparency. But some industry participants believe these regulatory shifts will yield benefits.

Since the Lehman collapse, bond and equity markets have knelt before their G7 central banks, as seemingly omnipotent monetary policymakers offer boundless liquidity. But amid fears over inflation risks and asset bubbles, is this the road to redemption or the path to perdition?

Low returns, new regulations, shifting business practices and – for the first time – fears over counterparty risk are challenging banks’ traditional cash-management products in an era of high corporate cash piles. Corporate treasurers are now mulling alternative short-term cash management solutions.

Credit markets are poised on a knife edge, with a huge pool of European corporate debt needing to be refinanced in the coming years in an era of scarce liquidity, fear some market players. But others believe market innovation will enable borrowers to scale the refinancing cliff.