Sweden

With a sizeable portfolio of variable rate mortgages, it makes sense for Stadshypotek to issue floating rate covered bonds, as this minimises interest rate risk and swap costs. Though the investor base for floating format covered bonds is still in its infancy, treatment of the asset class in bank liquidity buffers could soon be improved, and since FRNs are better suited for bank liquidity books, this is a market that could potentially deliver a substantial stream of demand.

Swedbank looks set to price the tightest non-German euro seven year benchmark covered bond in over five years, and with a negligible new issue premium. The transaction’s success drew on a confluence of positive factors.

The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FI) announced on Thursday that it will introduce higher capital requirements for four major Swedish banks. It also intends to activate a countercyclical capital buffer and has said it will increase the risk weight of mortgages from 15% to 25%, in line with the Riskbank’s recommendation last year.

Credit sentiment is positive, and it seems unlikely that the European Central Bank would take anything other than an accommodative stance at next week’s policy meeting, but bankers are getting cautious that valuations are becoming overstretched, particularly in those markets which have until now been considered safe havens.

The Swedish Bankers Association has published a letter to the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision which says that the Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR) would cause banks to rely less on covered bond funding, and more on alternative sources which are not as stable.

Swedish lenders should set a 70% loan to value cap for interest only mortgages and loans higher than that should be on a repayment plan, the Swedish Bankers’ Association said on Wednesday. Investors welcomed the news but said it would have a marginal effect. The Riskbank's governor, Stefan Ingves, said on Wednesday that mortgage risk weights should rise.

Länsförsäkringar Hypotek (LF Hyp) issued Sweden’s first covered bond deal of the year on Tuesday, having identified solid excess demand in Monday’s deal from Finland’s OP Mortgage Bank. The euro funding was cheaper than what the borrower could have achieved in Swedish kronor.

The European Commission must ignore the counsel of the European Banking Authority, which has called for covered bonds to remain as level 2A assets within Basel III’s Liquidity Coverage Ratio. It must instead base its decision, due by June 30, on the EBA’s analysis that covered bonds are as liquid as sovereign bonds and good enough for Level 1 of the LCR.

Sweden's finance minister, Anders Borg may want the country's banks to rely less upon the covered bond market and more upon growing their own deposit bases, but if Swedish banks were to abandon a market that has served them so well for so long, it could do more harm than good.

Swedish finance minister, Anders Borg’s call for the country’s banks to reduce their reliance on covered bonds to fund mortgages has not won support among bankers, who questioned the need to tinker with a funding mix that has served Swedish banks so well.

SEB returned to the covered bond market on Monday to issue its second seven year euro benchmark of the year and the second from a Swedish bank in less than a week. Though SEB was unable to match the cheap funding in Stadshypotek’s recent deal, it was placed with more real money investors.

After emerging from blackout on Tuesday, Stadshypotek returned to the covered bond market on Wednesday, mandating joint leads for a euro benchmark. Despite pricing at the tightest seven year Scandinavian deal since 2006, the borrower attracted robust demand, in an exercise that, once again, highlighted just how undersupplied the covered bond market has become.