Many corporate bondswill be issued next month. But few have moresignificance for the future than the $100m mortgage-backed security being planned by Hipotecaria Nacional (Hipnal), Mexico's biggest specialist mortgage lender.

As recently as five years ago, with the Mexican capital markets still moribund after the disaster of the December 1994 "Tequila Crisis," it would have been laughable even to think about launching a mortgage-backed bond. But since then, Mexico's painfully earned economic stability has changed that.