S&P counterparty doomsday postponed

Standard and Poor’s new structured finance counterparty criteria, which were due to go into effect today, will not apply to covered bonds until S&P has the chance to review further. Until Thursday, up to 80% of covered bond programmes were expected to go on CreditWatch Negative today, with the rating agency reporting only a few covered bond issuers that had credible plans to make their programmes compliant.