Covered Bonds

Moody’s cut the ratings of the covered bond programmes of Alpha Bank and EFG Eurobank Ergasias on Friday after downgrading the issuers and seven other Greek banks because of their weakening stand-alone financial strength and worries about the country’s challenged economic prospects.

New Finnish covered bond legislation due in July could make indirect issuance an option for smaller institutions, according to market participants, and will do away with legal distinctions between mortgage-backed and public sector-backed issuance. (This follows up on an article from Monday.)

Settled purchases reported by the European Central Bank totalled Eu1.798bn this week, making it the third busiest week since the covered bond programme began last July.

Moody’s cut the ratings of mortgage covered bonds of four Greek issuers yesterday (Thursday), and left them on review for further downgrade, after increasing the refinancing margins it uses in its analysis of Greek covered bonds.

Standard & Poor’s yesterday (Wednesday) said that a downgrade of Spain from AA+ to AA, on negative outlook, would not “automatically” trigger cuts of Spanish financial institutions’ ratings, although it downgraded five Portuguese banks on Tuesday after lowering their sovereign’s rating that day.

Standard & Poor’s cut the rating of Alpha Bank’s covered bonds from AA- to A- yesterday (Wednesday) after the Greek issuer’s rating was cut from BBB to BB on Tuesday.

Standard & Poor’s yesterday (Tuesday) cut the ratings of four Greek banks after downgrading their sovereign by three notches.

Fears of losses resulting from any Greek government debt restructuring panicked markets yesterday (Tuesday) after Standard & Poor’s downgraded Greece from BBB+ to BB+, on negative outlook, making it the first member of the euro-zone to have its debt cut to junk status.

Moody’s cut the rating of mortgage covered bonds issued by National Bank of Greece from Aa1 to Aa2 yesterday (Monday) and placed them on review for further downgrade, after lowering the rating of Greece and several of its banks last week.

Denmark’s mortgage banks, central bank and financial supervisory authority have said that new liquidity rules proposed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and the European Commission pose a serious threat to the Danish mortgage credit system and wider economy and would destroy the country’s model of adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) lending.

EFG Eurobank Ergasias has set up a second covered bond programme, which is backed by Greek residential mortgages mainly denominated in Swiss francs. Moody’s yesterday (Monday) assigned an A1 rating, on review for possible downgrade, to a first series launched off the Eu3bn programme.

Canadian bank Toronto Dominion has filed a Eu10bn public sector covered bond programme.