The treasury official from Spintab in Stockholm says his call is urgent. Can Euromoney supply a list of names of the biggest buyers of bonds in Europe? The Swedish bank is worried about how it will fund itself after European economic and monetary union (Emu). It feels it must begin to market its bonds more widely across Europe, as other foreign borrowers may begin competing for the funds of domestic Swedish investors on which it now relies.
And in Portugal Manuel Pinho, former director of borrowing for the Republic of Portugal and now running the treasury at Banco Espirito de Santo, explains why the bank has just arranged a $1 billion Euro-medium term note programme, even though it has no immediate plans to issue off it and, for now, funds at lower cost in Portugal than it could abroad. The bank, he says, must raise its profile ahead of Emu and prepare mechanisms for borrowing efficiently beyond its national borders.
Across Europe, borrowers big and small are preparing for the enormous change to come with a single currency, when the introduction of the euro will create one huge European domestic market in place of closed, national, domestic markets.