The adoption of elements of Denmark’s mortgage finance system is being explored by a taskforce that will next month present a report to the Icelandic government on possible changes to the country’s mortgage finance model.
Swedbank and Nordea kicked off the Nordic fourth quarter reporting season this week, with a miss on net profit leading to profits coming in short of consensus expectations.
Danish mortgage banks have begun announcing their plans for the forthcoming auction season of more than Dkr200bn (Eu26.8bn) of ARMs bond sales, while Danish MPs launched the latest salvo in the ongoing battle for covered bonds to be included as Level 1 assets in LCRs.
Financial institutions bond issuance was noticeably down on the busy start to the year this week, with the latest deals showing that core issuers should be mindful of the need for larger new issue premiums (NIPs) and/or consider subordinated debt opportunities, according to bankers.
Nordea has received approval to apply the advanced internal ratings-based (IRB) approach to its corporate exposures in the Nordic region, which will boost its pro forma Q3 2013 Core Tier 1 capital ratio by 0.7 percentage points, the bank said yesterday (Wednesday).
Sparebanken Vest Boligkreditt sold a Eu500m no-grow five year covered bond on Thursday of last week (9 January), having seen “no reason to wait” to tap the market early in the year given strong market conditions, an official at the issuer told Nordic FIs & Covered.
DNB is closing the first Samurai issue for a European financial institution of 2014 tomorrow (Friday), a ¥81.6bn (Eu573m, Nkr4.78bn) dual tranche five year senior unsecured deal that achieved far broader distribution than the Norwegian bank’s last Samurai.
Moody’s placed the A2 rating of SBAB Bank on review for downgrade on Tuesday, a day after the bank announced the departure of its CEO, with the rating agency citing profitability and the fate of new product offerings among challenges facing the bank.
The European Commission will take into account “features specific to the EU banking system and financial markets” in addition to European Banking Authority (EBA) reports and international standards when deciding on covered bonds’ status in the LCRs, according to an EC spokesperson.
Standard & Poor’s upgraded covered bonds issued out of BRFkredit’s General Capital Centre from AA- to AAA on 27 December, citing higher than expected levels of overcollateralisation for the programme.