DBRS has rated its first Italian covered bond programme, having yesterday (Wednesday) assigned a rating of A to a Banca MPS programme used for retained issuance. It has also for the first time rated cédulas issued by Banco Sabadell.

The rating of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s Programme 2 marks DBRS’ entry into the obbligazioni bancarie garantite (OBG) market. It is the only rating agency on MPS’s Programme 2, although the Italian bank’s other covered bond programme is rated by at least one other agency.

DBRS rates the issuer BBB with Negative Trend, and said that a downgrade of the issuer would lead to a downgrade of the covered bonds by an equal number of notches.

The same applies to Sabadell’s cédulas hipotecarias, which were rated A by DBRS. It rates the Spanish bank A (low) with Negative Trend.

The Sabadell rating takes the number of DBRS’ Spanish covered bond ratings to four, according to an official at the rating agency. It now has 13 covered bond ratings across four countries: Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain.