The financial turmoil in the autumn demonstrated all too clearly that there is a considerable risk for both borrowers and issuers if interest rates are fixed only once a year. Danmarks Nationalbank is in favour of spreading issuance of adjustable-rate loans to other months than December.
1  Last week, the Government Statistician announced that the gross overseas debt of New Zealand banks and corporates had risen by $ billion during the year to 31 March 1998, to reach a total of $ billion. Of this increase, it was stated that $ billion was on account of the increase in the New Zealand dollar value of foreign currency debt.