Covered Bonds

ING Poland has issued its first covered bond, a deal secured on green assets denominated in zloty. The issuer plans to return early next year with its first euro denominated green covered bond in benchmark size, said chief executive Boda Miroslaw,

NordLB Luxembourg Covered Bond Bank has mandated joint leads for a roadshow to market the first renewable energy covered bond to be issued under the country’s new lettres de gage énergies renouvelables legal framework. A trade is expected to follow soon.

Three covered bond issuers took advantage of a rise in yields, following what seemed a breakthrough in Brexit negotiations, to issue transactions that would not have been well received two weeks ago. Banca Popolare dell’Alto Adige’s debut and Sparkasse Hannover’s sub-benchmark deals delivered positive returns, while demand for a slightly negative-yielding benchmark from Sparebanken Sør Boligkreditt was boosted by its green credentials.

Nationwide Building Society announced a consent solicitation on Wednesday with plans to convert two floating rate covered bonds to pay coupons based on Sonia rather than Libor, and is considering doing the same on all of its Libor-based bonds. The UK issuer followed Lloyds, which won plaudits from Moody’s for undertaking a similar exercise on a covered bond earlier this month.

Covered bonds issued in October have had a distinctly mixed reception — as depicted by the wide dispersion of scores on GC Covered Bond Marker. Bankers say the outlook is complex as investors are more cautious and it’s not fully clear how the European Central Bank’s (ECB) deposit tiering will really play out in conjunction with its asset purchases, its Targeted Longer-Term Refinancing Operations (TLTRO) and negative interest rates.

The European Central Bank’s (ECB) decision to introduce tiered deposit rates means that €800bn of cash held at the central bank will pay a higher interest rate than most covered bonds. This is not bad news for spreads — it just sounds like it is.

The European Central Bank’s decision to introduce deposit tiering should have meant less demand for negative yielding covered bonds. However, there has been little evidence of sustained selling and bank analysts are optimistic that demand will hold up.

Caisse Francaise de Financement Local (Caffil) has mandated leads for a roadshow to present its new green covered bond framework that, unlike its peers, is secured on public sector assets.

La Banque Postale (LBP) took advantage of a rare rise in yields to issue a positive yielding covered bond on Monday. Its tiny return was enough to ensure success and stood in contrast to the negative-yielding deals issued last week that could have been hit by European Central Bank’s deposit tiering, said bankers.

Debut Italian covered bond issuer Banca Popolare dell’Alto Adige, which is based in South Tyrol and is more commonly known as Volksbank, has mandated leads for a roadshow ahead of a planned deal.

Pfandbriefe issued by Deutsche Pfandbriefbank on Wednesday and Hypo Tirol on Thursday struggled to find enough demand. Though spreads are not expected to widen, the deals showed investors are more discerning as uncertainty builds ahead of the European Central Bank (ECB) asset purchases, which are due to commence in November.

Moody’s said on Wednesday that investors’ approval of Lloyds Bank’s request to convert the interest basis on a covered bond from Libor to Sonia was credit positive for the issuer and bodes well for the rest of covered bond and structured finance markets, which must transition to Sonia before 2022.