Europe

Leaders in emerging market countries wonder whether the world’s confidence in the US’s creditworthiness is misplaced

A top Chinese diplomat wants the BRICS to create a secretariat in order to make the group more efficient

Countries must resist calls to protect their domestic systems from financial reform

Italy’s Mediobanca decided not to press ahead with a covered bond debut on Wednesday as the Republic of Italy launched a seven year BTP on the same day. Instead the issuer is expected to launch a deal targeting the mid to long end of the curve on Thursday, when it is likely to be joined by Commerzbank, which has mandated for a seven year mortgage Pfandbrief.

Commerzbank plans to issue a seven year mortgage Pfandbrief on Thursday, in its first mortgage-backed deal not issued from Eurohypo’s programme.

Moody’s has assigned a triple A rating to the €199m of commercial mortgage back Pfandbriefe issued by NATIXIS Pfandbriefbank AG.

Spain’s new export finance covered bonds, Bonos de Internacionalización (BI), have a weaker credit profile than existing export finance covered bonds but greater flexibility, Moody’s said this week. The Spanish authorities’ introduction of the new bonds comes as they work to improve the efficiency of covered bonds as a funding tool.

The covered bond market continued to trade on a stable footing on Monday, even though the US could technically default in less than two weeks. Italy’s UBI Banca successfully priced a €1.25bn deal on a comfortably oversubscribed and granular book, at a very competitive spread.

Moody's has given a triple-A rating to the Norwegian mortgage covered bonds issued by Sweden’s Skandiabanken, which has an A3 issuer credit rating.

UBI Banca is set to make a return to the covered bond market for the first time in two and a half years. After mandating leads for a benchmark euro deal on Friday, books are expected to open on Monday

Despite some investors snubbing NIBC’s popular new conditional pass-through covered bond (CPTCB) structure when it was priced on Tuesday, analysts say there are a number of reasons why the structure should be on RMBS and covered bond investor buy lists alike.

The strong reception NIBC encountered for its conditional pass-through covered bond from traditional covered bond investors pays testimony to its regulatory endorsement from the Dutch central bank. This approval gave the product a much wider appeal than was initially expected, suggesting there is scope for a broader range of issuers to consider this structure than was first thought.