2023-08-28 14:44:45
It sounds like the beginning of a story with a bad ending: when Ulrich Bindseil was on his way to the agreed meeting point in New York in 2015, a downpour was falling. “It was pouring non-stop,” recalls the 53-year-old, who holds an influential post at the European Central Bank (ECB) as Director General for Market Infrastructure and Payments. In New York, however, he was traveling privately at the time. A car pulled up, Bindseil got in and was confronted by an American who wanted $1,000 in cash from him.
Dennis Kremer
Editor in the “Value” section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.
What sounds like the plot of a bad crime novel was by no means dubious. Bindseil found the American on the Internet because he had special securities in his possession: government bonds from the early years of the German Empire, i.e. from the 1870s. That these bonds found their way to America is less unusual than one might think. Government bond markets have always been international, and in the early days, before electronic exchanges, bonds were issued in paper form. Financial transactions still had something haptic about them and did not only take place in the electronic space as they do today.
#Emperor #stopped #paying