In brief: Yapi Kredi is finalising its first covered bond issue today (Friday), an SME loan-backed deal launched off a Eu300m programme, to become only the second Turkish bank to use the funding instrument after Sekerbank launched the first issuance from the country last year. [Deal size corrected]

A spokesperson at the bank told The Covered Bond Report that the debut issue is being finalised today (Friday), with more details to be announced afterwards. UniCredit International was arranger for the issuance.

Moody’s yesterday (Thursday) assigned an A3 rating to the deal.

See here for previous coverage.

[We incorrectly stated the deal size to be Eu300m equivalent, but this is the size of the programme.]