A German issuer could tomorrow (Tuesday) announce a mandate for a benchmark to be executed mid-week and a couple of other issuers are said to be looking to tap into a market that a syndicate official described as “fantastic” in the wake of measures announced by the ECB on Thursday.

The market was quiet today due to public holidays in many parts of continental Europe, but a syndicate official said that there could very well be an announcement tomorrow for a German Pfandbrief, which would then be executed on Wednesday. Another said he is working on two deals for possible execution this week, which he described as being neither core nor peripheral mandates.

Westpac New Zealand last week held a roadshow with Barclays and UBS. Caisse centrale Desjardins du Québec (CCDQ) has also been on a roadshow – with Barclays, Crédit Agricole and DZ Bank – although a banker at one of these said on Friday that it was a non-deal exercise.

Another syndicate official said that covered bonds from peripheral jurisdictions had tightened most since the European Central Bank (ECB) meeting on Thursday, when it announced a reduction in headline policy interest rates, the development of an asset purchase plan and targeted longer term refinancing operations (TLTRO).

“Today is a day off, but issuers will come back hungry tomorrow, and why wouldn’t you issue with the market as it is?” he said. “Looking at the way last week’s deals are performing on secondary, issuers should pull the trigger and go for it.”

The syndicate banker added that the market was looking particularly strong for UK issuers, with a Yorkshire Building Society Eu500m seven year issued on Wednesday trading 4bp tighter than its re-offer level of 18bp over mid-swaps. A Eu1bn seven year Danske Bank deal launched last week has tightened 1bp from its re-offer of 13bp over and a Eu1bn five year OP Mortgage Bank benchmark 1bp from 5bp over, according to bankers at their leads.

Another syndicate official said that the market was “fantastic”.

“It could hardly be better,” he said.

He said that longer maturities could be in favour and another agreed.

“Five year and seven year still seems to be the sweet spot on the curve for covered bonds, but 10 years is also becoming something of an option,” he said.