The Euro

Citation

Palmer, S. (1999), "The Euro", Journal of Property Investment & Finance, Vol. 17 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/jpif.1999.11217cag.001

The Euro

Internet briefing

Scarlett PalmerThe Department of Land Management and Development,The University of Reading, UK

Keywords The Euro, European Monetary Union, European Central Bank, WWW

The Euro

The European single currency, the euro, was officially launched on 1st January of this year. Eleven countries joined at the start and, although Britain has opted not to join at present, what has been termed ''the biggest event in European economic history'' is bound to affect most of us in the near future. In this article I shall identify and review a few of the sites offering information on European Monetary Union. I have also included information on a couple of sites that I hope will prove useful in that they offer free downloadable software relevant to the topic.

Before getting any further it is worth mentioning the euro symbol . Full support for the euro symbol is built into the system font sets in both Windows 98 and Mac OS 8.5, so users of these systems will not need to download the fonts separately. However, users of other systems can download the font from the relevant Web page at no charge. PC users should go to www.microsoft.com/windows/euro.asp and Mac users to www.maccampus.com/EuroLogo.htm These sites offer information on the symbol and the ability to download the ''update patch'' needed to enable you to input, display and print the symbol. The sites are both extremely busy and, even though they offer alternative sites for downloading, the process can be rather tedious. My best suggestion is to access the relevant site as early as possible in the morning when traffic is lightest and to be patient!

Euro: get ready for the euro

The official UK Government Website for the euro -- entitled ''Euro: get ready for the euro'' -- can be found at www.euro.gov.uk It is, as the name perhaps suggests, largely retrospective in that it deals with the position in the run-up to 1 January 1999 rather than the ongoing situation.

However, the site does offer a large number of downloadable factsheets that offer basic information and are useful background reading. The information in the ''Key Facts'' section is rather limited but if you really know nothing about European monetary union or the euro and are afraid to ask, then this is a good starting point. Factsheets such as ''The Introduction of the Euro and the Implications for the UK'' and ''The UK Position on EMU'' provide a single page of information that should bring you up to speed.

The section entitled ''Working with the single currency'' offers further factsheets but these are a little more detailed although still only a couple of pages in length. Papers in this area include ''Foreign Exchange Rate Risk'' and ''Contracts and Other Legal Issues''.

The Bank of England

The Bank of England hosts a page that ''brings together significant euro-related information''. The address of the site is www.bankofengland.co.uk/euro.htm For users requiring more scholarly writing on the subject of European Monetary Union than is offered by the official government site, the Bank offers a series of ''Practical Issues Booklets''. These have been produced quarterly since 1996 and the intention is that ''The Bank will continue to publish Practical Issues during 1999, although less frequently than before the launch of the euro''. At the time of writing, January 1999, there are ten booklets available online. These are all available over the Web as PDF files which may be viewed and printed using an Adobe Acrobat Reader. This is an increasingly common format for mounting information on the Web and the Reader is available for use across all major computing platforms free of charge from the Adobe site -- www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html.

The latest Practical Issues booklet -- December 1998 -- includes details of the role of London as an international financial centre, presented in a series of excellent colour charts, and a summary of the European Central Bank's monetary policy strategy. The previous booklet includes a chapter on ''Market Guidance on the Changeover to the Euro in Wholesale Financial Markets'' which has a link to a document by Slaughter and May entitled ''The impact of the Euro on loan documentation''.

As well as the Practical Issues booklets, the Bank has a number of other publications on European Monetary Union, details of which are available from the main Bank of England page or directly at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publica.htm#europe These publications range from fact sheets on ''Economic and Monetary Union'' to the transcript of a speech by Eddie George entitled ''Emu -- One Currency, Fifteen Countries?'' delivered to the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. Most of these can be viewed or printed from the screen although some are in the PDF format mentioned earlier.

In addition to offering its own publications on the euro, the Bank of England acts as a convenient staging post in that it offers links to ''Other Euro Net Addresses''. This is a very useful directory giving clickable links to over 100 euro-related sites under headings such as ''Accounting'', ''Central Banks'', ''Exchanges & Market Associations'' and ''Regulatory Organisations''. For any person wanting to carry out a thorough trawl of Web-based euro information this would be the place from which to start. It is particularly useful in offering links to information provided by the ''first wave'' member states although some of this is only available in the language of the member state.

Euro Information from the Financial Times

The Financial Times www.ft.com now offers a link to ''latest euro prices'' from its front page. This offers latest data on, for instance, EMS ecu rates and euro spot forward prices. There are also daily reports on the ''euro market'' and the ''euro trading day''. All this information is available free of charge but users must complete a short registration form on their first visit to the site in order to gain access to all the material that is offered.

The FT has also published a special report on the euro and this is available at www.ft.com/emu/index.htm. This is an ongoing report offering links to today's news and prices as well as a guide which details major news and financial stories. The report acts as an archive of stories concerning the euro that can be accessed under a series of headings such as ''finance and industry'', ''preparing for the euro'' and ''politics of EMU ''. Each article is reproduced in full with the original date of publication. As one would expect of the FT the information is offered in a clear and concise style.

The European Central Bank

The European Central Bank (ECB), entrusted with managing the euro, was officially inaugurated in Frankfurt in June 1998. All member states that are part of the euro system must consult the ECB before adopting legislation covering certain banking, financial and monetary sectors. The ECB web site can be found at www.ecb.int Much of the information available at present concerns the development of the Bank and the events leading up to the launch of the euro. However, there are some very useful looking publications under the ''publications'' and the ''statistics'' headings.

The ECB monthly bulletin will explain the monetary policy decisions taken by the Governing Council of the ECB and aims to ''enhance the transparency of monetary policy \ldots through a comprehensive economic analysis''. The first issue of the bulletin is now available on line (in PDF format) and runs to 92 pages. It is a very useful document for anyone needing to acquaint themselves with the ''euro area''. The document has chapters on ''The economic situation in the euro area at the start of stage three'' and ''economic developments in the euro area''. Both these offer well presented detailed discussion. In addition there is an extensive section on euro area statistics which offers over 30 pages of statistical information on the area covering, inter alia, ''saving, investment and finance in the euro area'' and ''real economy indicators in the euro area''. While the text of the bulletin is only available in PDF format, many of the statistics are also available as CSV files which can be downloaded directly into most spreadsheets.

Currency converters

I have mentioned currency converters in an earlier article (Vol. 15 No. 3) but for those of you who wish to know how much 235 euro are worth in Malaysian ringgits most of these converters now offer conversion to and from the euro. There are many converters available in many different formats. A quick and easy one is available at www.xe.net/currency A more sophisticated version that allows you to specify dates for the conversion and offers currency forecasts and historical currency tables can be found at www.oanda.com/converter/classic

In this article I have attempted to identify some of the key sites offering information on the euro. There are many thousands of sites on the subject and I have largely concentrated on those sites offering a UK perspective. I have also tried to identify sites that are good starting points both in the type of information offered and in that they provide a database of links to other sites.

Sites reviewed in this article

To download the euro symbol for use on your computer PC users should go to:www.microsoft.com/windows/euro.aspMac users to:www.maccampus.com/EuroLogo.htm

To download an Adobe Acrobat Reader:www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html

Currency converters:www.xe.net/currency and www.oanda.com/converter/classic

Bank of England: www.bankofengland.co.uk/euro.htm

European Central Bank: www.ecb.int

Financial Times: www.ft.com

UK Government euro information: www.euro.gov.uk