European countries are increasingly going directly to their own citizens to fund their ballooning borrowing needs, in a retail push partly designed to press high street banks into raising the interest rates they pay to depositors.
Italy, Belgium and Portugal have issued about €60bn worth of bonds directly to households so far this year, up from €26bn last year, as savers flock to the higher yields offered by governments.
Italy is returning to the market in October with a second sale of its retail-focused “BTP Valore” bond. The debt, which was first launched in June this year and pays a premium if you hold it to maturity, raised a record amount for debt pitched at retail investors of €18bn.
Read the full story on the Financial Times here.