The third covered bond purchase programme registered a slight increase in gross purchases last week, with settlements up almost Eu100m, with secondary market purchases taking up the slack as the Eurosystem took a smaller share of supply, according to analysts’ estimates.

European Central Bank figures released on Monday show the CBPP3 portfolio increased Eu1.161bn, from Eu217.439bn to Eu218.600bn, in the week to last Friday. Portfolio redemption figures released yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon show that no CBPP3 holdings matured last week.

Gross purchases therefore increased by Eu96m from Eu1.065bn in the previous week, when only four days’ worth of purchases settled due to public holidays on 1 May.

Since the ECB lowered its monthly QE target to Eu60bn on 1 April, down from Eu80bn previously, weekly CBPP3 purchases have been consistent at around Eu1.1bn – except for two weeks in mid-April when no new benchmark CBPP3 issuance settled and when buying was affected by public holidays.

Three CBPP3-eligible issues settled last week, a Eu500m 10 year issue for MünchenerHyp and a dual tranche Eu1.75bn seven and 15 year offering for Caffil. Analysts estimated that the Eurosystem’s share of the deals totalled Eu600m-Eu700m. In the previous week, the Eurosystem took an estimated Eu800m share of eligible issuance.

This would imply that secondary market purchases averaged Eu92m-Eu112m per day last week, up from around Eu66m per day in the previous week.