This Halloween has proven particularly ghoulish for Serbian borrowers. On October 31, the National Bank of Serbia became the second European central bank in as many weeks to hike rates sharply, raising its policy rate by 200bps to bring it to 17.75%. This followed the National Bank of Hungary’s October 22 decision to hike its… [Read more]
Amid the continuation of the carnage on global financial market benchmarks in October, it has come to little surprise that emerging market currencies have universally suffered as investors shift asset allocations to perceived safe havens in the US and eurozone. Well, almost universally. One currency in the emerging Europe realm has failed to depreciate against… [Read more]
I have just come back from an extensive trip around emerging Europe, taking in Latvia, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria. Over the next few days I will write up some of my thoughts on these countries. Today, I will be starting with Romania. I last visited Bucharest in 2003 for a conference, and have somehow… [Read more]