Covered Bonds

Caisse Française de Financement Local (Caffil) has launched the first negative yielding covered bond since the onset of the coronavirus crisis in Europe, after linking the use of proceeds from the deal to fighting against the effects of the pandemic.

Five years after issuing its first green Pfandbrief, Berlin Hyp (BHH) issued its first two green private placements, just before publishing it annual green bonds report on Monday. But Pfandbrief benchmark supply hopes seem distant as spreads to German Laender are prohibitively tight.

The European Mortgage Federation and European Covered Bond Council has introduced new features to its harmonised transparency template (HTT) and, at the same time, its Covid-19 task force has published the first monitoring report that contains a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of all national and international policy responses.

Bluestep Bank has issued its first covered bond and the first Swedish transaction secured on mortgages that are not prime. The deal offered a juicy pick-up to prime benchmarks, but still provided a competitive and diversified source of funding.

Caisse de Refinancement de l’Habitat (CRH) issued the first big seven year covered bond since February on Thursday, attracting extraordinary demand and pricing in line with where recently issued French five year deals were trading. It sent a bullish signal to the market and came after a long series of French financial institution bonds that have highlighted just how practical and market-orientated the country’s banking sector has become.

Some bank treasury teams are weighing up whether to access the primary market ahead of first quarter results, with bankers suggesting they could take advantage of growing demand amid falling supply.

Mortgage payment holidays and falling residential and commercial real estate prices will likely lead to a deterioration in the credit quality of the collateral pools securing covered bonds. But those programmes have other protective measures that will keep investors well insulated. And, if they need more protection, issuers can easily assuage their and rating agency concerns by adding collateral.

Canadian banks should be applauded for funding themselves in public with deals bought by real investors in a range of currencies at actual market clearing levels — astonishing though that may be for the many entitled European issuers that have shamelessly become accustomed to central bank funding.

Covered bonds easily deliver the most competitively priced funding for banks, but the real value for issuers lies in the long end which, for the time being, is too expensive.

A measured reopening of the primary bond markets in the last month has left banks in a good place to launch new deals after first quarter results, according to FIG DCM officials.

A recent European Central Bank working paper may have underestimated the part a sovereign’s credit plays in the covered bond’s credit risk. But this relationship plays a very important role, a Moody’s analyst said on Monday, referring to a report by the agency assessing how the pandemic will affect covered bond credit quality.

Covered bond spreads have begun to stabilise with the help of European Central Bank secondary market purchases and a few bank investors. Although the market is still offered, secondary spreads are falling into line with where recent primary deals are trading. And, following the ECB’s decision to improve capital treatment of market risk, there are hopes bid side liquidity will improve.