Conference, after conference, press release after press release, European telecom operators boast discoveries of how best to mitigate their voice revenue declines. After years of giving away broadband for next to nothing, today the very same telcos are fighting tooth and nail, backpedalling even, to reverse the irreversible.

Being at the most conservative end of the finance community, bankers are expected to be cautious when it comes to lending out their precious funds to new borrowers. These days of course, caution even extends to long-standing relationships, at the dismay of CFOs. Unlike forward-looking equity investors with a ‘riskier’ outlook on life, bankers are backward looking.