Covered Bonds

An increase of just Eu37m to the European Central Bank’s covered bond purchase programme reported today (Wednesday) is the third lowest yet and a sharp drop from the Eu500m plus figures reported on the first two days of the week.

An increase of Eu504m to the European Central Bank’s covered bond purchase programme today (Tuesday) has taken buying reported this week above Eu1bn after just two days. That exceeds what was reported for the whole of last week.

Purchases reported under the European Central Bank’s covered bond programme this (Monday) morning jumped by Eu506m, the third highest increase since the scheme began on 6 July and the biggest in a month.

Véronique Hugues, Dexia’s global head of long term funding, has moved to become head of financial communications for the group.

Covered bonds with loans to small and medium sized enterprises or export credit agency guaranteed loans as collateral are now eligible for the Bank of England’s extended-collateral long term repo market operations, dollar repo operations and discount window facility, the central bank announced yesterday (Thursday).

Tim Armbruster has left Commerzbank to join HRE Group as head of group liquidity management in the treasury management team.

The European Central Bank’s sixth full week of reporting settled covered bond purchases under its Eu60bn programme came to a close following a Eu159m increase today (Friday), bringing the week’s reported total to Eu815m.

Northern Rock covered bondholders will be given a second chance to vote on the continued involvement of Lloyds TSB Bank as standby account bank in the programme at a meeting to be held on 2 September. The first meeting, held on 6 August, had to be reconvened due to lack of quorum, and one leading investor has called for bondholders to use their vote.

The holiday season is gradually coming to an end, but next week could be another quiet one in the primary market, with no concrete new issue projects in the pipeline, according to many market participants.

Degussa Bank GmbH is set to become a Pfandbrief issuer, according to Dresdner Kleinwort analysts.

The European Central Bank this (Thursday) morning disclosed the smallest increase yet to settled purchases under its Eu60bn covered bond purchase programme.

The Federal Reserve has for the first time assigned US covered bonds their own buckets at its discount window, giving them recognition that had been sought by proponents of the instrument in the US.