Covered Bonds

Bankers are confident that Canadian covered bond issuance will resume after the Bank of Canada withdrew the repo eligibility of retained covered bonds, while honouring existing repo deals. But bankers are split as to whether supply will restart this year or be deferred until next year.

Nearly half of Europe’s banks do not intend to participate in the next rounds of the Targeted Longer-Term Refinancing Operations (TLTRO III), according to the results of a new survey published by the European Central Bank this week.

Muenchener Hypothekenbank has mandated leads for a rare 20 year covered bond benchmark, the first from a German issuer this year and only the third from the whole market. Rates have collapsed rendering the recently popular 15 year tenor less attractive.

Investors are sanguine about the fact that covered bonds pledged for repo with central banks hit a new record this year. Although issuers acknowledge the need to appear regularly with benchmarks in the public market, some have scaled back, but this is likely to prove temporary.

UK banks and building societies are struggling with difficult aspects of incorporating climate change into their risk management, as demanded by the regulator, a PwC survey has found. The answer to some of their problems could be a non-risk initiative: science-based targets.

Dual recourse structures have become increasingly popular in India after last year’s debut from Kogta Finance. And with the sanctity of bankruptcy remoteness successfully tested in the courts, sentiment towards such structures has improved further. This could help pave the way for a national champion bank to test appetite for Indian covered bonds, which would offer the country's lenders a source of long-term diversified funding that they can't get from deposits.

DZ Hyp returned to the covered bond market for the fourth time this year on Thursday to issue a €1bn eight year mortgage Pfandbrief. The deal showed that any uncertainty over the relative value of covered bonds has been firmly swept away after the European Union’s blow out debut earlier this week.

Coventry Building Society (CBS) has set up a second covered bond programme that is secured exclusively on the mortgages originated under its buy-to-let Godiva platform, which had previously been funded through its Mercia RMBS programme. Although the covered bonds require more collateral to reach the same rating, they offer greater funding flexibility as they can be pledged for repo and are eligible for the liquidity coverage ratio.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has substantially increased its covered bond issuance limit which had stood at 4% of assets on an issuer’s balance sheet. This, along with very strong market conditions, should help to induce the country’s borrowers, which have not printed in euros for more than two years, to make an appearance before the year is out.

Aareal Bank issued a short six year Pfandbrief on Wednesday at a deeply negative yield and with a negative concession. Investor demand was impressive, illustrating that Pfandbriefe, twinned with Aareal’s loan origination standards, were sufficient to offset any concern over the hotel and retail exposures in its collateral pool. At the same time DZ Hyp has mandated leads for an eight year Pfandbrief.

A proposed change to the Pfandbrief law introducing a soft bullet maturity is designed to harmonise Germany’s covered bond regime with the rest of Europe’s, as envisaged under the EU’s Covered Bond Directive. However, it could highlight the vast differences in how soft bullet covered bonds are repaid following extension triggers.

The impact of Covid-19 lockdowns on the hotel and retail loans securing German Pfandbriefe is likely to present serious challenges. But conservative lending and high interest rate coverage ratios provide solid protection, so managing a prospective rise in risk-weighted assets will likely be the bigger challenge for certain issuers, said bankers on Tuesday.