HSBC announced plans to launch Orion, its DLT platform for issuing bonds. It enables the tokenisation of both the digital bond and the currency used for settlement, enabling atomic settlement or delivery versus payment (DvP). Tokenisation opens up opportunities for fixed-income issuance, including faster processing and improved operational performance.

Britain’s wind farms produced a record amount of electricity, cutting demand for natural gas just as the temperatures start to drop. The UK’s fleet of wind farms generated more than 20 GW on Wednesday, according to National Grid Plc. In the coming years, the UK government aims to expand its offshore wind capacity to as much as 50 GW by 2030.

The price investors pay to borrow cash overnight by pledging gilts is trading 43 basis points below the BOE’s rate. Low repo rates are due to pension funds hoarding cash and years of quantitative-easing have limited the pool of safe government securities freely available to trade. Demand for high-quality liquid assets still outstrips supply.

Issuances of green and other sustainable bonds have fallen in 2022. Year-to-date volumes of $679 billion were down 17%, outperforming the broader bond market, which declined by 27%. Challenging macroeconomic environment pressures global debt issuance. Corporate volumes account for the bulk of the decline this year with other sectors remaining stable.

Perpetual bonds are the ideal tool to resolve a financial crisis. Not having to repay the principal is a tremendous advantage. Now the interest rate would be high, but after a “non-call” period, bonds can be redeemed and replaced with bonds with a lower coupon. This would address a difficulty pension funds have faced — the illiquidity of long-term gilts.

Both developers are asking state regulators to pause review of the contracts. Increases in interest rates, supply chain constraints and inflation have significantly increased the expected cost of constructing the project. They suggest tax incentives and an increase of prices under the power purchase agreements to make the projects viable again.

Poland has chosen Westinghouse to build its first nuclear power plant. Poland is planning to spend $40 billion to build two nuclear power plants with three reactors each, the first one to be launched in 2033 and the second one in 2043. Nuclear power plants will replace the ageing coal-fired plants in a country with some of the worst air pollution in Europe.

Hybrids do not affect credit ratings and they offer higher yields to investors. They have been used by energy companies. EDF has €13bn in hybrids outstanding. When they mature, issuers can repay them and issue new ones, or roll them over. Rising interest rate make the latter more likely, but that will make investors less likely to buy hybrids in future.

The 10th edition of the Global Green Finance Index (GGFI) evaluates the green finance offering of 84 financial centres. The index is based on a number of existing indices in combination with a survey of senior industry figures from around the world. The GGFI was developed by the Long Finance initiative with support from the MAVA Foundation.

European pension funds should have access to a central bank-backed facility as a last resort to help them avoid the fire-sale of assets forced on UK pension managers by margin calls due to the falling gilt prices. European insurance companies and pension funds had to pay extra €50bn in margin over a 12-day period in March 2020 when markets panicked.

Dutch central bank is calling on the country’s pension funds to boost holdings of cash and other liquid assets and to report any need for fire sales of assets, to ensure that they can avoid the turmoil that hit the UK, where pension schemes rushed to sell assets in response to a drop in government debt prices that sparked collateral calls in hedging strategies.

Italy withdrew in 2016. The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) protects energy investments by foreign companies. Three energy groups are suing three European governments over the closure of coal power plants. Spain is sued by renewable energy companies after it reduced the subsidies. A process to “modernise” the pact has been under way since 2018.