Business in the European covered bond market was brisk in the first quarter of 2010. Indeed, issuance volumes reached a record high for the first quarter of any previous year of $127 billion, an almost four-fold increase from the same period a year ago, according to Dealogic. A clear trend is developing here that is seeing covered bonds emerge from the shadows of the RMBS market, with larger investors showing a clear preference for them as an asset class in their own right. The argument has been reinforced by legislative developments outside Europe. Together, these two factors mean that a greater proportion of mortgage financing in future years should be through covered bonds.
This is nowhere more prevalent than in the UK and the US, the two countries whose property bubbles burst most spectacularly and that are most in need of diversified mortgage funding options as their securitization markets face...
