Globalization

interdependence of buyers and sellers of financial instruments in financial centers around the world. This phenomenon is due mainly to several factors: (1) the maturation of the eurocurrency markets since the 1960s; (2) dramatic changes in trading room technology in recent years, providing market makers with near instantaneous access to current market data on commodities and financial instruments; (3) a desire by financial institutions to expand lending and other activities beyond geographic boundaries; and (4) a desire to control balance sheet risk through interest rate swaps and other financial swap agreements.

For example, the growing use in international financial markets of marketable debt instruments, principally in the eurobond market, as opposed to traditional bank lending, as a financing vehicle for major corporate borrowers, and also sovereign governments. The shift away from bank credit instruments, such as Note Issuance Facilities, toward Floating Rate Notes and Eurocommercial paper began in the early 1980s, and was aided by the strong secondary market in Eurobond financings. Both commercial banks and investment banks participate in this market. Outside the United States, U.S. commercial banks are not confined by Glass-Steagall Act limitations on securities underwriting, and are active participants in the Eurobond market.

Advances in information technology allowed traders in foreign exchange and other money market instruments to manage positions on a 24-hour basis, by moving their trading book to a different financial center at the close of trading. This practice, known as passing the book, permits financial institutions that make markets in New York, London, or Tokyo, for instance, to maintain a single trading book listing positions, limits, and exposures for the entire firm, rather than keeping separate books in each trading center.