As a representative of the central bank of a country participating in monetary union, I feel more at home making some comments on the monetary and capital market policy environment, which is likely to have a major impact on the development of the European bond markets and thus also on the fate of the Pfandbrief.
In many ways, the liberalisation of investment services in the European Economic Area, the creation of electronic markets and the internationalisation of financial portfolios did away with the segmentation of Europe’s capital markets even in the years prior to monetary union.