Surging covered bond repo supply hits OC, lowering protection

The gush of central bank repo-eligible supply in the covered bond market has reduced collateral protection by more than 50 percentage points, in some cases. And with a precipitous drop in the pace of mortgage production likely to follow, investors will be obliged to discriminate between issuers that commit to maintaining minimum levels of overcollateralisation (OC) and those that don’t.