Belgium

The covered bond pipeline grew this week as Ibercaja and BNP Paribas Fortis mandated leads for roadshows and Nordea signalled it could be ready to return soon.

The European Commission has approved, with some amendments, rules for collecting margin on uncleared derivatives, traversing a key hurdle as Europe seeks to catch up with Canada, Japan and the US.

Flemish Community made its euro benchmark debut on Tuesday with a €1.25bn dual tranche Reg S deal.

A handful of deals could hit the euro market for public sector borrowers next week, with the seven year part of the curve looking particularly attractive — the latest evidence for which was a KfW trade this week.

The European Securities and Markets Authority has proposed making it mandatory to trade the iTraxx Europe and Crossover credit default swap indices on a regulated market or other recognised trading facility.

Industry-wide collaboration on distributed ledger technology governance is needed and policymakers must plan ahead for the impact of such advances on securities markets and post-trade infrastructures, The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation has said.

The Flemish Community of Belgium has announced that it will roadshow a euro syndication on September 26, while KfW has mandated three banks to sell a benchmark.

Belfius Bank this week sold the first Belgian covered bond to price within a French covered bond. The deal also came with virtually no new issue concession.

Belfius Bank has priced the first Belgian covered bond inside a French covered bond and with virtually no new issue concession.

Buwog, the Austro-German residential property company, added to the recent reemergence of convertible bond issuance on Tuesday, with the sale of a €300m deal, while the Belgian real estate investment trust Cofinimmo also came to market with a €230m deal to buy back bonds due in 2018.

Talk of the European Central Bank extending its bond buying programme to banks sent the iTraxx Europe Senior Financials credit default swap basket back within 20bp of the Main index on Monday and to its tightest levels since the UK referendum vote on EU membership at the end of June.

Two European real estate investment companies have wrapped up loans in the last week, though borrowing by the sector is lagging behind bumper 2015 volumes.