To see the digital version of this report, please click here. To purchase printed copies or a PDF of this report, please email gloria.balbastro@thomsonreuters.com. A multi-year effort to build a framework for covered bonds in Morocco looks set to finally bear fruit this year, just when it is most necessary as mortgage lending growth has slowed. The African nation will follow in the footsteps of other emerging markets, such as Hungary, Slovakia, Chile and the Czech Republic, while hoping to avoid

To see the digital version of this report, please click here. To purchase printed copies or a PDF of this report, please email gloria.balbastro@thomsonreuters.com. Social security, as they say in Washington DC, is the third rail of American politics: full of voltage. Touch it, and you die. Much the same could be said, in the high priesthood of debt finance, about covered bonds. They are sacrosanct, inviolable, an apparently sacred asset class. In recent years investment banks, retail lenders, ev

To see the digital version of this report, please click here. To purchase printed copies or a PDF of this report, please email gloria.balbastro@thomsonreuters.com. Relative to its Nordic peers, Denmark has suffered an acute housing downturn, coupled with a number of bank failures. It is also renowned for having one of the toughest financial regulators in Europe, one that has been more aggressive than most in imposing losses on bondholders. Indeed, Denmark’s is an extremely idiosyncratic market,

To see the digital version of this report, please click here. To purchase printed copies or a PDF of this report, please email gloria.balbastro@thomsonreuters.com. With traditional covered bond supply thin, Germany’s covered bond market is looking at new collateral types. The lack of supply in the covered bond markets this year has been particularly marked in Germany. According to Deutsche Bank, the total outstanding volume of Pfandbriefe hit €490bn at the end of March this year. This compares t

To see the digital version of this report, please click here. To purchase printed copies or a PDF of this report, please email gloria.balbastro@thomsonreuters.com. Covered bonds backed by loans to small-sized and medium-sized enterprises are the product of two converging post-crisis trends, but in the last few months both of these have started to reverse. While regulators prefer covered bonds and banks have to use collateralised funding, SME covered bonds are a natural funding solution. Using SM

To see the digital version of this report, please click here. To purchase printed copies or a PDF of this report, please email gloria.balbastro@thomsonreuters.com. Peripheral banks were expected to forge a comeback to the debt capital markets this year, but apart from a few showcase covered and senior bond deals many treasurers seem unconvinced, saying spreads are too high and that cheap European Central Bank funding is just too good to turn down. “The issue now is that spread levels are still t

To see the digital version of this report, please click here. To purchase printed copies or a PDF of this report, please email gloria.balbastro@thomsonreuters.com. Spain has €238bn of Cedulas outstanding, excluding retained issuance, while Ireland has €21bn, and the spread performance of both has been impressive over the recent period. Irish covered bonds in particular have been in demand, with average spreads tightening nearly 400bp since January 2012. Cedulas spreads have come in around 200bp

To see the digital version of this report, please <a href="http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/Launch.aspx?EID=edeb2941-cafe-4c23-941b-6a8087d9cc14" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onkeypress="window.open(this.href);return false;">click here</a>. To purchase printed copies or a PDF of this report, please email gloria.balbastro@thomsonreuters.com. To say covered bonds issuance has suffered as a result of all this is an understatemen