Spurned by investors, banks forced to stick to three months.

The article reports on the failure of banks to issue commercial paper (CP) in their desired terms as one to three month maturities dominate the European CP market. According to one dealer, some A1/P1 banks are very well funded in the short term with most of them are looking for cash over six months. There remains considerable name differentiation in spreads among bank borrowers. For example, Irish banks are trading at around flat in the three month area, while big British banks range from around minus 10 base points to around minus 19 base points.