With 2012 a crucial year for covered bonds’ regulatory treatment under various European initiatives such as CRD IV and Solvency II, Florian Eichert and Frank Will have taken over as chairmen of two European Covered Bond Council (ECBC) working groups that will be key to driving the industry group’s lobbying efforts, with changes also having taken place at the top of the organisation.

Florian Eichert has replaced Horst Bertram as chair of the ECBC statistical working group after Bertram left Bayerische Landesbank in November. Frank Will takes over as chair of the EU legislation working group from Paul O’Connor, who has succeeded Antonio Torío as ECBC chairman.

Carsten Tirsbæk Madsen, executive vice president of Denmark’s BRFkredit, was also made deputy chairman when the appointments were confirmed by the ECBC steering committee last month. The last two deputy chairmen of the ECBC have gone on to become chairmen.

Eichert told The Covered Bond Report that the statistical working group will be at the heart of the lobbying work done by the ECBC with bodies such as the European Banking Authority, European Commission and the European Central Bank in need of data to decide on the treatment of covered bonds in various regulatory initiatives, such as the Capital Requirements Directive IV.

“In my new role I will be tasked to come up with the relevant data and represent the covered bond market in talks with these institutions together with Frank [Will] and Luca [Bertalot, head of ECBC],” said Eichert. “We will try to get covered bonds the best possible recognition in these major reforms that will come into force in the coming years.”

Will thanked O’Connor for his work and that of other members of the EU legislation working group in ensuring that European lawmakers, regulators and supervisors have maintained or even improved the favourable treatment of covered bonds in a wide variety of areas, but said that “there is no time to enjoy our recent success”.

“Regulators are not sleeping and regulation continues to be a constant process of changes and amendments,” he said. “Various areas of regulation such as CRD IV including LCR & NSFR, Solvency II, MiFID, EMIR Directive, and the CRA III package have reached decisive points in the law making process and require our full attention.

“All the aforementioned laws are areas where the EU Legislation Working Group can contribute in close co-operation with other ECBC working groups.”

The other ECBC working groups and their respective chairmen are: technical issues – Ralf Grossmann of SG; market related issues – Richard Kemmish of Credit Suisse; covered bond factbook – Wolfgang Kälberer of the vdp; and rating agency approaches – Boudewijn Dierick of BNP Paribas.