United States

Panellists at the II Covered Bond Summit in New York on Monday including representatives of Bank of America and Washington Mutual were bullish about the potential for covered bonds to take hold among US financial institutions given the increased spread between covered bonds and other funding instruments that has resulted from the recent turmoil.

Joshua Friedberg, director and portfolio manager at BlackRock, painted a bleak picture of the future for covered bonds in the US yesterday (Monday) at the II Covered Bond Summit in New York. He said that rather than behave as a rates product as they had been marketed to US investors, covered bonds had suffered from illiquidity in the recent market turmoil and should pay a liquidity premium that might make 144A issuance prohibitively expensive for European issuers.

Sheila Bair, FDIC chairman, gives the regulator's take on the covered bond market.

Sheila Bair, FDIC chairman, takes further questions, beginning with Louis Hagen of the Association of German Pfandbrief Banks.

Sheila Bair, FDIC chairman, takes questions, beginning with Bert Ely of Ely & Company.

Tim Skeet, head of covered bond origination at Merrill Lynch and conference chair, introduces Sheila Bair, chairman of the FDIC, who makes her opening remarks.