Inter-American Development Bank
The IDB has used its programme to help open new bond markets in Latin America, but maintained its attractive after swap costs of funding
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The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has never found it hard to borrow money: it's long had the very best name recognition among Japanese retail investors, and can happily fulfill all of its borrowing needs in the uridashi market. Since 2000, the IDB has sold uridashi bonds in 16 different currencies, including the US dollar, Australian dollar, New Zealand dollar and South African rand in 2004 alone. Because of its experience with uridashis, the IDB is expert at issuing in exotic currencies and making sure it gets excellent funding costs once the bond is swapped into dollars. "In all these issues, really the driver is the swap," says Eloy Garcia, the IDB's treasurer. "That's where we begin."
In 2004, however, the IDB decided it was going to branch out from uridashis, if only for diversification. It realized it could use its abilities to issue in exotic currencies to help develop capital markets in its own region of Latin America.