Covered Bond Opinion

With yields set to rise and spreads likely to widen, covered bond issuers should waste no time in getting ahead on 2017’s funding plans and doing the more difficult trades first.

Europe’s bank recovery and resolution directive (BRRD) could face an important first test this month if Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena fails to complete its rescue plan. But market participants should not completely write off the new framework, even if the bail-in process does not pan out how they had hoped.

Making senior debt explicitly bail-inable fundamentally changes the risk profile of the asset class. Investors must not take that shift lightly.

What's on a bank CFO's Christmas list

Markets are obsessing about the Italian referendum on Sunday. Commentators are cramming everyone’s inboxes with warnings about how a 'no' vote on premier Matteo Renzi’s attempt to streamline Italy’s Senate could precipitate a fresh eurozone crisis and imperil Italy’s creaking banks.

On the surface, stress tests seem arcane and disconnected from reality. Perhaps they are, but they’re an increasingly important tool for bank regulators around the world.

The European Union has allowed lobbyists to blunt the teeth of its long-awaited money market fund reform act.

The European Central Bank, European Commission and the European Banking Authority are pulling in different directions when it comes to covered bonds with extendible maturity structures. Time for a bit of harmonisation.

The quixotic quest of Minneapolis Federal Reserve president Neel Kashkari to “end too big to fail” requires nothing less than a total reordering of US bank regulation (and probably implies ditching Basel as well). But really solving the problem can’t just mean restructuring the banking system, it means nothing less changing how we think about money and debt as well.

There may be grounds for criticising the UK’s asset management industry, as the Financial Conduct Authority has done this week. Finding that price competition among active managers is weak, it proposes new regulations to make charges and policies clearer.