Bloomberg recently announced the launch of proprietary ESG scores. This initial offering includes Environmental and Social (ES) scores for 252 companies in the Oil & Gas sector, and Board Composition scores for more than 4,300 companies across multiple industries.
As a technology provider for the global foreign exchange market, 360T interacts daily with a wide spectrum of international financial institutions that contain a wealth of expertise, knowledge and insight regarding the world’s largest asset class. In their podcast series 360T looks to tease out just a fragment of this information inviting their listeners to join an exchange amongst industry professionals with each episode.
The episodes themselves consist of short, informal interviews with senior figures from market-leading firms within the FX industry, exploring some of the key trends and themes they see impacting the market today. Tracing the evolution of technology, liquidity, credit, data analytics, market structure, trading strategies and more, the podcast series offers a wide range of unique insights regarding how the FX market today is developing around us.
Further informations can be found on the Website of 360T.
Image: Daniel Friesenecker/Pixabay
Green Bunds will soon see the light of day. The debut issue is to take place as a twin bond with a minimum volume of 4 billion euros and a term of ten years as early as September, Finance State Secretary Jörg Kukies announced to the press in Berlin. According to reports, this may even be a very short term issue. The bond will be launched on the market via a bank syndicate. The fourth quarter should see another green Bund come on the market. A five-year maturity is planned. According to Kukies, the federal government will thus be able to issue up to 11 billion euros this year via green Bunds.
“From now on, the federal government will issue green federal securities every year,” announced Kukies. “This will give strong support to strengthening the sustainable finance market.”
According to the State Secretary, actual green expenditures from the 2019 federal budget of up to 12.7 billion euros can be allocated for the planned emission. Kukies mentioned the areas of transport, environment, international cooperation, research, energy and industry as well as forestry, natural landscape and biodiversity. This would provide security for investors, Kukies emphasised, “There’s green in this, too.”
According to the Finance Agency, the German government’s new green securities will always have the identical characteristics of an existing conventional government security (i.e. same maturity and coupon). With the concept of these twin bonds, the German government aims to issue green twins for standard maturities of the conventional curve and to create added value for the sustainable finance market in Europe. In the future, the Federal Government will be able to offer investors different maturities and create additional added value for the sustainable finance market with a green euro interest rate benchmark.
“The twin concept offers the opportunity to take green bonds out of their niche by allowing a broad range of investors to get involved in the green bond market,” said Tammo Diemer Co-Managing Director of the German Finance Agency.
Source: Börsen-Zeitung, 25 August 2020, Kai Johannsen, Angela Wefers, © All rights reserved.
Image: Gerd Altmann/Pixabay
With its two-month trainee curriculum, TechTalents seeks to empower the next generation of business leaders that have an eye on innovation, technology and entrepreneurship.
The TechTalents program is an education program founded by TechQuartier and Eintracht Frankfurt and offers bright, motivated students a unique environment to learn real-world skills beyond the everyday university experience. Read more
On Monday, 24 August 2020, the DAX will finally be Wirecard-free. Following a rule change adopted by Deutsche Börse, in the future shares of insolvent companies will be immediately removed from the DAX family of indices, which in the case of Wirecard will happen on 21 August 2020, after the close of trading. The decision to accelerate the removal of Wirecard was unavoidable. After all, given the enormity of the balance sheet fraud scandal, it was unacceptable for the stock to continue to spoil the blue-chip index, which is a figurehead of the German economy, well into the next month.
Wirecard is also unworthy of DAX membership because of its plummeting share price and the resulting free-float market capitalization, which is far too low for the index, as well as the enormous daily fluctuations of the share. Wirecard has degenerated into a gambling stock that no longer has anything to do with solid investments. The stock is an imposition for market participants, especially for those who operate index-matching products and are therefore forced to hold the company.
As welcome as the decision is, it is ultimately just a first step. A more detailed review of the rules and regulations announced by Deutsche Börse, who will present the results before the end of this year, must lead to further changes in order to reduce the risk of further damage to the company’s reputation. Corporate governance aspects must also be taken into account.
What would happen, then, if Wirecard had not gone into insolvency after admitting that the reported EUR 1.9 billion did not actually exist? Assuming that the market capitalization and sales criteria were met, the stock would have continued to qualify for one of the select indices, as already happened in the Steinhoff case. The management of the retail furniture group, which went public in Frankfurt in 2015 and whose shares were temporarily one of the largest MDAX stocks, was shown to have fraudulently inflated its balance sheet. However, the company was able to avoid insolvency. The share price collapsed, and the stock dropped into the SDAX. In December 2019, it was removed from the index, to be later reinstated in March of this year. These events must not happen again. Proven balance sheet fraud must lead to exclusion from the index and a ban for several years.
Source: Börsen-Zeitung, 14. August 2020, Christopher Kalbhenn, © All rights reserved.
Image: Gerd Altmann/Pixabay
The Union of Arab Banks (UAB), the World Union of Arab Bankers (WUAB), the Arab Federation of Exchanges (AFE) and Frankfurt Main Finance (FMF) invite you to a virtual conference on “Central Banks Support to Financial Capital Markets in the Coronavirus Pandemic” on 1 September 2020 from 3 pm (CEST) and 2 September 2020 from 11 am (CEST).
The vast majority of banks from Middle East countries have not yet decided whether business units will be relocated from Great Britain to the European Union after Brexit or whether representative offices will be established in the EU in parallel. This is the result of a survey conducted by the Union of Arab Banks (UAB) among its members, in cooperation with Frankfurt Main Finance.
Since the Brexit referendum in June 2016, many Britons are leaving the United Kingdom, emigrating to mainland Europe and applying for citizenship in an EU country. This is shown by figures from the European Statistics Office Eurostat and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
In a deed of the monastery at Lorsch an der Bergstraße from the year 770 AD, two brothers donate parts of their property in Eschborn to the monastery. This deed is the first document mentioning Eschborn. It concerned arable land, 43 serfs and a vineyard, showing that the town was already a flourishing settlement. There is also evidence of Eschborn’s historical vibrance found in remarkable archaeological finds spanning from the Bronze Age to the Romans and Alamanni up to the early Middle Ages.
1250 years later, Eschborn is a modern trade and service centre in the Frankfurt Rhine-Main metropolitan region and the centre of Germany. The skyline of the South Industrial Park is symbolic of the dynamics of a long, eventful and successful history.
Anyone wishing to learn more about the city’s eventful history will appreciate the interesting video portrait on the city’s website at www.eschborn.de/1250-Jahre.
To mark the city’s 1250th anniversary, the city of Eschborn commissioned the Frankfurt filmmaker Pola Sell to produce interviews with citizens about their life in Eschborn and their perspectives on the city.
For the interview shots, a blue sofa was set up in the interviewees’ favourite places at the end of June. The “Eschborn Sofa” was always located in the middle of a public space, on Eschenplatz, in the sculpture park Niederhöchstadt or even on a paddock. On the sofa, long-time residents, newcomers, a female coach driver, a city planner, two recent graduates, a pizzeria owner and two petrol station operators talk about themselves and what they think makes Eschborn so special. The film project shows Eschborn’s diversity and the people who live in this city.
The videos are published on the Eschborn discovery map here.
The Eschborn Discovery Map enables you to digitally discover the city of Eschborn, its places and history. Whether art in public spaces, historical buildings, the history of Eschborn or favourite places – different categories enable visitors to discover new aspects of old familiar things.
The map and videos enable older residents to share their knowledge and their city’s history or favourite places so that they are saved from being forgotten and do not fall into oblivion. New residents are given the opportunity to learn about the city.
The Heinrich von Kleist School’s advanced art course developed a logo in cooperation with the Institute for Commercial Graphics, especially for the anniversary. A small jury of teachers, politicians and the cultural officer selected their favourite from ten submissions, eventually choosing the design by Stella Svalina, Tom Barton and Leon Steinbach.
“It was not an easy decision. All of the students developed creative and original ideas and presented them professionally,” said jury member Mayor Adnan Shaikh, praising the young designers.
The winning logo is well suited for use in promotional items due to its appealing shape, which is reminiscent of a coat of arms. It is versatile, lettering can be integrated, and colours can be changed. The logo shows a differentiated group of houses, creating a connection between the old town centre of Eschborn and the industrial area, with a dividing line, which symbolises the Westerbach, and the town rests on the roots of an ash tree.
Text and image: © Stadt Eschborn and Stephanie Kreutzer
