Nordea Bank placed an almost twice oversubscribed Eu1.5bn senior unsecured deal on Monday, which reopened the euro senior unsecured market after the Cyprus bail-out and was followed by a flurry of covered bond issuance.

A US$1bn five year Swedbank covered bond launched at the end of March was prompted by positive feedback from US investors and the contrasting fortunes of recent euro and dollar Nordic benchmarks, said the issuer’s head of funding, but the mortgage lender could return to euros later this year.

Swedbank and Svenska Handelsbanken tapped the dollar market with covered and senior deals, respectively, after DNB reopened the US market for European covered bonds last week, with attractive funding, investor diversification, and less execution risk than in euros behind their moves.

Länsförsäkringar Hypotek launched a Sfr125m (Eu101m) 10 year covered bond on Thursday of last week (14 March), which allowed the Swedish issuer to extend its curve to 10 years and was priced through the curve of domestic Swiss covered bond issuers, according to an official at the bank.

An official at Stadshypotek said that the end result of a Eu1bn long five year covered bond benchmark on Tuesday was satisfactory, even though guidance had to be widened 5bp from initial price thoughts suggested by banks that turned out to be too aggressive.

DNB today (Thursday) became the first European issuer to sell a US targeted benchmark covered bond this year, after SEB yesterday placed an inaugural, $1.25bn five year senior unsecured deal as dollars offered high quality Yankee names better terms than euros.

Swedbank priced its second US dollar senior unsecured benchmark on Tuesday, a well received $1bn (Eu764m/Skr6.34bn) five year deal that bankers said offered attractive funding versus euros.

Changes to Swedish regulations to improve monitoring and contain risks such as falling property values support Swedish covered bonds as a “safe and effective” funding instrument, Moody’s said on Tuesday.

A mortgage cap introduced in Sweden in 2010 is “still working” and a recent trend of rising LTV ratios has been broken, the country’s Financial Supervisory Authority said today (Thursday), citing results of an annual mortgage survey.

SEB launched the first Swedish euro benchmark covered bond in nearly a year on Monday after feeling that it was “due time” to return to what is its most strategic foreign market, said an official at the issuer, with a more acceptable cross-currency basis swap also spurring the deal.