After a long, illustrious but finally tumultuous and problem-riddled course starting in the Sixties, LIBOR – the London Interbank Offered Rate – was phased out in mid-2021 and is ending now, in mid-2023 as the main instrument helping the Euromarkets to develop and flourish, hosting an overhang of dollar liquidity (Eurodollars) and allowing for massive finance to be made available to businesses from London as a central global financial place.

The financial engineering behind this financial phenomenon was largely the artifact of a Greek (or rather a Crete-born), international banker, who worked initially for Manufactures Hanover, Minos Zombanakis. FT veteran journalist and financial expert David Lascelles wrote The story of Minos Zombanakis: Banking without borders published, in 2011 by Kerkyra Publications-economia Publishing. He set out the main steps for the emergence of the Eurodollar trade.

The Euromarket is called to deal with a crisis situation

The maturity of the Euromarket was to come when it was called to deal with a real crisis. It started with the Mexico debt crisis, that led to a rescheduling being agreed. But cross-default clauses came into play, thus rocking the market. David Lascelles recounts how the crisis was defused and Zombanakis’ role in all of it.

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David Lascelles is a leading international writer on financial affairs. A former Banking Editor and New York correspondent for the Financial Times, he is now Senior Fellow of the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation, a London-based think tank which explores the future of the financial services industry. He is also the author of several books and research papers on banking and finance. He is married and lives in London.