AFT reflects on a new asset class

Agence France Trésor was nervous about becoming the first issuer of euro-denominated inflation-linked bonds but it is pleased with the results. Now its regular linker issuance schedule is helping to bring certainty to the development of the curve. Katie Martin reports

Benoît Cœuré

IT SEEMS SO obvious now. Inflation-linked issues have become such an established part of the European bond market, and such a neat way for funds to match assets and liabilities, that investors now need a good reason not to use them, rather than a good reason to buy them. Even in a period of low inflation, new types of investors are coming to this asset class with every issue. The level of demand has prompted Japan, a country that famously has no inflation, to join the rush to issue linkers.

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