“Global Issues Increasingly Important in the Covered Bond Market”
Date
Sections
Brussels, 13 April 2016 – For immediate release
The European Covered Bond Council (ECBC) is pleased to announce the establishment of a new Working Group focusing on global issues in the covered bond market. The ECBC Global Issues Working Group was launched due to the high level of interest expressed by ECBC members from various non-EEA jurisdictions such as Brazil, Canada, Singapore and South Korea.
The Working Group held its inaugural meeting in Singapore on 7 March 2016 and today’s ECBC Steering Committee meeting in Copenhagen reaffirmed that the overarching aim of the Working Group will be to enhance transparency and convergence in covered bonds globally.
The ECBC Steering Committee also formally appointed Colin Chen, Chairman for the Association of Banks in Singapore’s (ABS) Standing Committee on Covered Bonds and Managing Director & Head of Structured Debts Solutions, DBS Bank, as the Chairman of the Global Issues Working Group for the mandate 2016-2019.
In commenting on the establishment of the new Working Group, Luca Bertalot, EMF-ECBC Secretary General, stated:
“Global issues are increasing their importance in the covered bond market and the ECBC is leading the expansion of the funding instrument to new markets and jurisdictions around the globe. The establishment of the new Global Issues Working Group will facilitate our work in developing synergies between traditional and emerging covered bond markets, and will help us serve covered bond issuer and investor communities even better globally.”
The new Working Group’s priorities will be presented to a wide group of covered bond stakeholders at the 23rd ECBC Plenary Meeting, which will take place in Copenhagen on 14 April 2016. The Agenda for this meeting is available here.
More information on the Working Groups and organisation of the ECBC can be found on the ECBC website: http://ecbc.hypo.org. The ECBC’s Covered Bond Comparative Database contains information on 35 covered bond jurisdictions globally: http://www.ecbc.eu/.
Contact:
Luca Bertalot
Secretary General
Tel: +32 2 285 40 35
Notes to the Editor:
Established in 1967, the European Mortgage Federation (EMF) is the voice of the European mortgage industry, representing the interests of mortgage lenders and covered bond issuers at European level. The EMF provides data and information on European mortgage markets, which were worth over 6.9 trillion EUR at the end of 2014. As of April 2016, the EMF has 19 members across 14 EU Member States as well as a number of observer members.
In 2004 the EMF founded the European Covered Bond Council (ECBC), a platform bringing together covered bond issuers, analysts, investment bankers, rating agencies and a wide range of interested stakeholders. As of April 2016, the ECBC has over 100 members across 26 active covered bond jurisdictions and many different market segments. ECBC members represent over 95% of covered bonds outstanding, which were worth over 2.5 trillion EUR at the end of 2014.
In June 2014, the EMF and the ECBC came together to form the Covered Bond & Mortgage Council (CBMC), which replaced the European Mortgage Federation as the legal name under which both entities operate, although in practice, both the EMF and ECBC brands are maintained and used to identify the two areas of focus within the CBMC’s scope.
The Covered Bond Label Foundation (CBLF) was established in 2012 by the EMF-ECBC. The Covered Bond Label website became fully operational on the 1st of January 2013, with the first Labels being effective since then. As of April 2016, the website features 14 National Transparency Templates, 77 issuer profiles and information on 91 labelled cover pools. The Covered Bond Label website currently provides issuance data on over 4,200 covered bonds, amounting to a total face value of over 1.4 trillion EUR, out of which over 2,000 covered bonds already include information on the Liquidity Coverage Requirement (LCR).
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