Dexia, a Franco-Belgian bank, was formed in 1996. This bank focused on lending to the public sector at very attractive rates, depending on sophisticated financial techniques. It heavily borrowed short-term funding to make long-term loans, and enhanced profitability with cheap funding. With the risk of maturity mismatch between assets and liabilities, Dexia still earned a strong credit rating and expanded its balance sheet from €258 billion in 2000 to €651 billion in 2008, before collapsing after a liquidity crisis in October 2008 and needing to be rescued by the state.