The European Commission is open to allowing voluntary convergence of covered bond frameworks around EBA best practices, alongside a possible tightening of CRR eligibility, as an alternative to legislating moves towards harmonisation in a consultation paper released on Wednesday.

A partial waiver from certain CRR requirements proposed by the Swedish FSA to reduce concentration risk would be credit positive for Swedish covered bonds, according to Moody’s, as it would allow programmes to maintain protections against market risks.

The Finnish Ministry of Finance presented proposals for the implementation of the CRD IV and CRR framework to parliament last Thursday (17 April), with the proposals in line with expectations, according to an official from the Federation of Finnish Financial Services.

Covered bonds are virtually as liquid as government bonds, according to a “very preliminary” draft ranking released by the European Banking Authority yesterday (Wednesday), which market participants have said puts the asset class in a strong position to be considered as Level 1 assets in Liquidity Coverage Ratios.