ING plans to issue Polish covered bonds, with ING Bank Śląski awaiting approval from Poland’s FSA to establish a specialist mortgage bank subsidiary.

ING Bank ÅšlÄ…ski, a subsidiary of the Dutch ING Bank, announced on 26 April that it has applied for permission from the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) to set up a specialist mortgage bank subsidiary, named ING Bank Hipoteczny.

A spokesperson at ING Bank ÅšlÄ…ski confirmed to The Covered Bond Report that ING Bank Hipoteczny is intending to issue mortgage-backed covered bonds.

The spokesperson said ING could not yet provide a timeframe for the first issuance, given that ING is still in the process of setting up the issuer and is awaiting KNF approval.

ING Bank ÅšlÄ…ski is set to join PKO Bank Polski, Pekao Bank Polski and mBank in having set up a mortgage bank through which to issue covered bonds. PKO Bank Hipoteczny is the only Polish issuer to have sold euro benchmark covered bonds to date, having sold two Eu500m short six year issues, the last on 23 March.

Under the Polish framework, only specialist mortgage banks can issue covered bonds.

ING Bank Hipoteczny would be the fourth covered bond issuer in the ING Group, joining ING Bank, ING Belgium, and ING-DiBa. ING Bank Australia previously expressed an interest in joining the market in 2012.

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