The Bank of England’s special liquidity scheme does nothing that hasn’t already been done by the Fed and the ECB – except on more onerous terms.

The US secondary market in life insurance is being extended to sellers who can ill afford to relinquish their policies.

Far from solving BAA’s financial problems, the CAA’s regulatory review will make life for it even worse.

It’s pitiful trying to blame short sellers for the woes of the financial system.

Unless Japan gets more involved in international capital markets, perhaps through a sovereign wealth fund, it is likely to become increasingly irrelevant in Asian finance.

Measures to boost the competitiveness of Brazil’s exporters might well be fruitless.

Are banks biting the hand that feeds them? Perhaps, but what choice do they have?

If there’s another Bear Stearns or Northern Rock-style blow-up, will any other bank be willing or able to pick up the pieces?

All market participants must still confront the reality of near total market failure across the debt and money markets, an inability to sell even quality assets for cash or to borrow against them and a complete loss of faith between financial institutions. More public money is surely coming, but how can it repair this?

Local-currency debt markets in emerging economies are beginning to suffer from the credit crisis and broader global slowdown.

The covered bond market has not behaved in the way investors had been led to believe it would. It’s time to realize that covered bonds are not the golden child of the bond family.

A merger of BNP Paribas and Société Générale would be difficult to fund and to execute.

Latin American bankers appear confident that the region can continue to avoid the worst of the US contagion.

Private placements are becoming an increasingly common route for emerging market companies seeking to tap global debt markets.

The Japanese megabanks claim there are no shocks to come on the sub-prime losses front. If true, it’s a big leap forward for transparency.

Many of the delegates at an industry conference in Nevada seemed blind to the real world beyond the securitization desk.

Marking everything that is complex down to zero, because markets are illiquid, does not seem to be a particularly equitable or sensible way of going about things. And that’s before you even consider the way the marking malaise is contributing to systemic risk.

Chinese banks face a potential corporate defaults crisis for the first time in five years.

Tough talk by the regulators might bear fruit for the monolines.

The prevention of re-runs of the Northern Rock catastrophe depends on something better than the duplication of an existing regulatory committee.

A long-term government guarantee of Northern Rock’s wholesale funding might prompt other mortgage lenders to demand similar treatment even if they are not in financial difficulty.

Korea Investment Corp has broken new ground for the country by investing $2 billion in Merrill Lynch.

Anyone hoping for clarity around banks’ write-downs is sure to be disappointed, but the industry must make a marked improvement.

Such is the fragile state of leading banks that they might have to sell their highly prized emerging markets businesses to survive.

With traditional debt markets still in disarray, it’s theoretically a good time for sukuks to foster issuance outside the Middle East and Asia.

Does Latin America really need a new multilateral lender? Do Latin countries need more funding, and might not Banco del Sur hinder local capital markets’ growth?

Financial markets depend on confidence and trust. Trust is being broken.

The continuation and expansion of the term auction facilities is evidence that they actually work. But as with any medication, there are side-effects.

UBS’s chairman is struggling to hold on but shareholders must resist temptation to remove him at the moment.

It must have been the shortest tenure ever in the most senior job in global banking.