Canada

Benchmark euro covered bond issuance from a core borrower is expected soon after Rabobank and Swedbank reopened the senior market. Meanwhile, DNB Boligkreditt followed ANZ into the dollar 144A market on Wednesday with a similarly sized deal, in the same tenor and at the same price.

The latest data from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) shows that the renminbi has returned to fifth place in the ranking of most active global payments currencies, accounting for 2.03% of payments worldwide in March 2015.

Toronto-Dominion Bank smoothly executed the sixth seven year euro covered bond this week despite a Bloomberg blackout delaying the process. The larger than usual €1.25bn deal offered a decent new issue premium and attracted comfortably oversubscribed book.

National Bank of Canada (NBC) priced the first 144a three year dollar benchmark since July 2013 on Monday. The lack of comparable deals meant there was an element of discovery in pricing, which was almost excessively defensive. BayernLB was set to price a three year Reg S public sector dollar benchmark.

National Bank of Canada is on track to sell a $750m three year covered bond, its first covered bond in dollars since 2011.

Toronto Dominion issued the ninth sterling denominated covered bond of the year on Wednesday, and the third from a Canadian bank in the three year floating format. The transaction provided better executable funding than it could have achieved in dollars or euros. The issuer followed Bank of Nova Scotia, which on Tuesday priced the third Canadian dollar benchmark of the year, funding more cheaply than was possible in euros.

Toronto Dominion Bank became the fifth borrower this year to issue a dollar covered bond and the second from Canada. The spread it achieved was tighter than previous deals and cheaper than it could have achieved in the euro market.

Canada officially launched its renminbi settlement hub this week, after the country became the first RMB hub in the Americas in November last year.

Euro covered bond issuance could be poised to moderate next week, though it is still likely that one or two deals could emerge at short notice. Issuers outside Europe are less inclined to bring euro benchmarks as a change in the basis swap with dollars has reduced the difference in the cost of funding.

After a long succession of euro issuance from Canadian banks, Royal Bank of Canada broke ranks and issued the first dollar covered bond of the year on Thursday, funding at levels close to what it could have achieved in euros. The $2bn deal is likely to have been closely watched by other global banks with an established presence in the US market, and suggests that further deals could follow.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce opened books for the third Canadian benchmark issued in euros this year. The transaction priced tighter than its peers with no new issue premium, though it was still comfortably oversubscribed. The strong result suggests potential for spread narrowing between eurozone and non-eurozone covered bonds.

After raising €1.5bn of five year funding last week, Bank of Montreal returned to the covered bond market on Tuesday to issue a sterling three year floater, the third in this format from a Canadian bank so far this year.