BBVA today (Tuesday) issued the first cédulas de internacionalización, a form of Spanish covered bond backed by guaranteed export credits, printing a retained Eu1.5bn three year issue upon receiving a definitive rating for such issuance from Moody’s.

Cédulas de internacionalización (CI) were established as a class of Spanish covered bonds backed by guaranteed export credits under a law passed in July 2012. Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria had been expected to inaugurate the asset class after having been assigned a provisional Aa2 rating for its CI issuance on 3 August.

After Moody’s assigned the CIs a definitive Aa2 rating this morning, BBVA today issued a Eu1.5bn three year bond at a level of 10bp over 12 month Euribor.

A banker close to the deal said the retained issue would be used as collateral with the ECB. Market participants had expected BBVA to retain the issuance.

As of June 2016, BBVA’s cover pool, which consists of export finance loans guaranteed by different export credit agencies (ECAs), totalled around Eu2.519bn, according to Moody’s, with the collateral score for the cover pool at 24.4%.

The rating agency said overcollateralisation in the cover pool is 67.9%, of which the issuer provides 42.9% on a committed basis

In September 2013, Spain laid the foundations for bonos de internacionalización, a pass-through version backed by a specific pool of loans. Santander is understood to have been the only bank to issue bonos de internacionalización, also on a retained basis, while it has also worked on a French programme.

Banks in other countries have also included loans guaranteed by ECAs as collateral for covered bond issuance, with Crédit Agricole using Coface-guaranted loans under French covered bond legislation, for example.