The FSA intends to publish a Policy Statement early next month that will wrap up a review of the UK’s covered bond regime, with market participants expecting line-by-line reporting of cover pool assets to become mandatory for Regulated Covered Bonds.

A market participant told The Covered Bond Report that the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and HM Treasury – which jointly conducted the review – are set to announce, probably in December, that line-by-line reporting will be required for Regulated Covered Bonds (RCBs).

A member of the RCB team at the FSA would not comment on this, but said that the FSA is intending to publish a Policy Statement early next month that will set out the authorities’ expectations for RCBs on the back of the review and consultation.

The FSA and Treasury launched the review of the RCB framework in April, opening a consultation that closed on 1 July. Provision of loan-level data was one of the measures that the authorities proposed.

The decision to go ahead with this would align the FSA’s and Treasury’s approach to investor reporting of covered bonds with that of the Bank of England, which has already mandated loan-level disclosure for covered bonds used in its repo operations.

In a joint submission on a transparency initiative of the ICMA Covered Bond Investor Council, the Bank of England, FSA and HM Treasury argued in favour of loan-level data disclosure – although the CBIC believes that only aggregate data should be required of issuers. The UK Regulated Covered Bond Council stated a preference for aggregate data in its submission to the CBIC.