European banks can no longer take funding for granted. Investors surveying the credit, sovereign and regulatory environment in Europe have a host of reasons to take their money elsewhere. Until the regulatory picture becomes clearer and the European sovereign crisis eases, life is not likely to get much easier for those in charge of bank funding.

The European sovereign crisis hit ECM hard and nowhere harder than European IPOs. While US$36bn priced in the year, US$26bn launched and cancelled – with far more postponed before launch. European ECM bankers could learn from the US and Asia, but radical change is unlikely, so for 2012 to be any different all market participants will need to be honest and flexible – unlike today.

We’ve reached the end of a pretty momentous year in the markets. It’s been fascinating and captivating, but at the same time it’s also been incredibly frustrating, occasionally frightening, and certainly confounding. Here, Keith Mullin, IFR’s editor-at-large, gives a Mullin’s eye view of a turbulent year.

Assurances of tighter security after the Kerviel scandal did not provide much comfort to UBS when the firm suffered a huge loss – doubts remain that there is a 100% fail-safe system to prevent another rogue trading incident.

Leadership and innovation: Flow products dominated securitisation in 2011, but with borrowers’ needs extending beyond consumer products, innovative structures across a wide range of jurisdictions and asset classes were vital. In rising to the challenge and racking up a number of first-time structures in the process, Royal Bank of Scotland is IFR’s EMEA Securitisation House of the Year and Securitisation House of the Year.

The past year will be remembered as less than a banner period for US IPOs, especially in terms of overall performance. One bright spot in an otherwise challenging ECM landscape was the return of hyper-growth offerings – including some of the best and brightest social media companies – as compelling and highly sought-after IPO candidates.

A confluence of factors, notably rock bottom interest rates in the West, has been like a shot of steroids for cross-border local currency bond deals, giving issuers a realistic alternative to the major currencies. But how long will the effect last?

The offshore renminbi bond market is playing an important part in China’s internationalisation of its currency, giving investors a tantalising opportunity to build exposure to the renminbi. Take away the currency game, however, and its development as a genuine credit market has been far slower.

With new issue spreads continuing to lag behind banks’ funding costs by a discomforting margin and the credit environment set to worsen, the sustainability of the syndicated loan business is under intense scrutiny. Will pricing sanity finally prevail?

Since the onset of the financial crisis in 2008, there has been considerable flux in the leadership of the investment banking industry. The change has been considerable in terms of personnel. But has it produced a change of culture, to go with a more humble time for the industry?

As investment banking activity slumped in Tokyo in 2011 – hit by natural disasters, Europe’s sovereign debt crisis and the weak US economy – fresh questions were raised over the commitment of foreign banks – particularly those from crisis-hit Europe – to their Japanese operations. As the end of the year approached, job losses had started to accelerate.