Extrait
Swiss Franc Lending in Europe
1 Introduction
In recent years, the Swiss franc (CHF) has increasingly been used as the currency of denomination for private sector lending in several European countries beyond Switzerland itself. While the phenomenon of CHF mortgages in Austria has been widely documented in the press (for example PERRY 2007, KATTINGER 2008), little is known about CHF lending in other neighbouring and non-neighbouring countries of the euro area. Furthermore, while the use of the Swiss franc for retail lending in Poland and Hungary has been highlighted (for example CONDON and GARNHAM 2007, FUSTER 2008), little is known about CHF lending in other European countries outside the euro area.The objective of this paper is to give an overview of CHF lending by banks domiciled in Europe (excluding Switzerland) to the non-banking sector in developed and emerging Europe. We document the prevalence of CHF loans and compare their size to that of loans denominated in domestic currency and other foreign currencies. We characterise the borrowers who take out CHF loans and the types of these loans in comparison to loans in domestic currency. We further characterise the financial intermediaries issuing CHF loans and look at their methods of refinancing these loans and of hedging the corresp...Voir le contenu complet de ce document
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