At a presentation last week, Franklin Templeton told journalists that it is negotiating a global sales deal for its products with Credit Suisse, although the US would be excluded. Martin Oberholzer, managing director for Franklin Templeton's Swiss operations, said the company had also started talking to Credit Suisse rival UBS and terms with UBS could be finalised by the first quarter of 2001. It is also in talks with some Swiss private banks, as well as other distribution outlets which Mr Oberholzer called "fund supermarkets".'

Franklin Templeton was formed in 1992, when California-based Franklin acquired the UK-based Templeton, Galbraith & Hansberg. Its efforts to cooperate with some European banks come as it endeavours to build up the electronic delivery of its services.

Charles Johnson, President of Franklin Templeton International, commented: 'We have been gradually putting more and more of our products online. We have limited transaction capability at this point, however we expect over the next 12 months to have a significant amount of transaction capability.'

Swiss banks have pushed to the forefront of not only banking but broking too. The Internet is being increasing utilised to distribute products, aiming to spur inflows into their wealth management operations. Credit Suisse, for one, has an Internet fund data base, Fundlab, which lets users compare performance of its products and those of competitors.

Franklin Templeton is moving into Europe at the right time and believes that it can access a huge potential investor base via co-operation agreements with major banks such as Credit Suisse and UBS. According to a study by Goldman Sachs cited by Templeton, assets managed by European mutual funds are expected to quadruple by 2010. Rapid growth is also starting to open European banks to the idea of selling competitors' products along with their own to attract business to their banking platforms.

Martin Oberholzer concluded: 'I think over the recent two years you have seen a tremendous interest in the market, and you have seen that all the major banks in Switzerland - mainly Credit Suisse - have opened up the doors for third party funds. We believe that is exactly the route that we want to go.'