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NATWEST Markets will launch its $5bn+ Rose 2 securitisation as early as the end of next week. Like the October 1996 Rose 1 transaction, the deal will package up loans advanced to corporate customers by NatWest. "We have made it as close to the first deal as possible," said Andy Clapham, head of the securitisation group at NatWest Markets.

* The circa £1bn securitisation of residential mortgages for the Bradford & Bingley building society will be launched in the middle of October. The transaction, to be lead managed by NatWest Markets, will securitise part of the Mortgage Express portfolio acquired by the Bradford & Bingley earlier this year. * Sumitomo Bank's twin $2.5bn securitisations of European and US corporate loans are expected to appear early in 1998. An investment bank has been mandated in New York, and is liaising with Sumitomo in London, which is structuring the European issue -- it is not yet clear whether the two deals will be launched simultaneously.

NEW YORK CITY achieved its lowest cost of funds since 1972 with a $650m issue by the new Transitional Finance Authority in the domestic tax exempt market on Wednesday. NYTFA enjoys a statutory first right to the city's income and sales tax revenues, and is bankruptcy remote from both the city and New York State.

NOMURA will make its first exit from one of its principal finance ventures in November when its securitises a portfolio of around 1,100 UK pubs. The securitisation of the Phoenix Inns estate will come in a three tranche transaction. While few details are yet available, market sources said it seemed likely that the transaction will total between £210m and £220m.

Despite raising over $3bn in the international capital markets in the last four years, the African Development Bank (AfDB) remains one of the least understood supranational borrowers.

On the surface, all is sweetness and light. Publicly, treasurers enthuse about bank coverage of supranationals. "They have been very helpful in identifying new opportunities," says René Karsenti, director general of finance at the European Investment Bank (EIB).

Today, approaching 10% of all public supranational issues are in emerging currencies. In 10 years' time, it could be as much as 50%, as frequent issuers seek new markets in which to find deals that match their aggressive funding targets.

This has been an exciting year for supranational borrowers. Total issuance has been higher than ever before, with $47.4bn raised during the first nine months of the year - compared to $46bn over the same period in 1996.

According to one banker who knows the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development well (EBRD), the EBRD's treasury department made an estimated profit of $30m last year. The bank is well-known for being one of the smartest borrowers around, but clever capital raising cannot generate that amount of income. The key lies in the way in which the EBRD invests its surplus cash.

Structured notes have been one of the few areas of the capital markets where the needs and desires of supranational issuers, investors and bankers have met in happy unison in recent months.

Ask five bankers which issuer will become the benchmark borrower in the European single currency market after 1999 and you will get five different answers.

Cavalier. Swash-buckling. Even gung-ho. Words that crop up regularly when you ask bankers to describe the World Bank treasury department. Two years ago, such descriptions would have sounded absurd. Professional, obsessive? The answer would have been yes. But never cavalier. Over the last year, such phrases have become common currency when describing the World Bank's funding arm. What is going on?