Hard work and top quality pay off for supranationals

Supranational banks are among the most sophisticated and respected frequent borrowers in the global capital markets. The hard yards put in over the years to develop the most diverse investor bases and most complete maturity curves to be found outside the sovereign sector have paid off handsomely during the credit crisis. Funding targets have been comfortably met, with issuers employing an impressive array of currencies and techniques in public and private markets via benchmarks and opportunistic trades. And although they have not been immune to the volatility produced by the crisis — indeed, spreads were at painfully high levels in March last year as investors panicked over the supply of government guaranteed debt — their access to capital markets has never been in doubt.