Standard Chartered Bank has printed an inaugural covered bond off a $5bn programme backed by loans guaranteed by export credit agencies (ECAs), a $1.6bn (€1.49bn, £1.27bn) five year floating rate note, outside the UK Regulated Covered Bond regime.

According to the programme prospectus, dated 12 May, covered bonds under the programme are guaranteed by Corrasi Covered Bonds LLP, with issuance secured on export credit agency loans.

ECA guarantors applicable to the portfolio may change from time to time, it notes, but lists as potential guarantors Bpifrance Assurance Export, International Bank for Reconstruction & Development (IBRD) and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), both part of the World Bank Group, Korea Trade Insurance Corporation (K-Sure), and UK Export Finance.

ECA-related cover remains uncommon among covered bonds and especially publicly-placed issuance. The most high profile employer of such collateral is Caisse Française de Financement Local (Caffil), with parent SFIL having export refinancing as part of its mission alongside lending to the French public sector, while Spain has dedicated legislation, cédulas de internacionalización, although it is not typically used for public issuance.

Standard Chartered’s programme is also rare in being a UK programme outside the legislative Regulated Covered Bond regime. The prospectus notes under the heading “Unregulated Covered Bonds” that neither the issuer nor the covered bonds are on the Regulated Covered Bonds Register maintained by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Moody’s yesterday (Thursday) assigned a Aa1 rating to the Series 2022-1 issue. According to the rating agency, the value of the cover pool, as of Monday, was $1.7bn, and it comprised 25 export finance loans to 18 borrowers.

The covered bond anchor under Moody’s analysis is A1, based on the A1(cr) counterparty risk assessment of the bank without any added notches. The collateral score for the cover pool is 17.8%, and stressed cover pool losses are 20.6%, split market risk 11.7% and collateral risk 8.9%. The overcollateralisation level is 6.2%, of which 5% is provided on a “committed” basis, according to Moody’s, while the minimum OC consistent with the Aa1 rating is 1.5%, all of which needs to be on a committed basis. The programme’s Timely Payment Indicator (TPI) is “improbable”.

Standard Chartered itself is named as arranger and dealer for the programme in the prospectus. The bank did not respond to a request for comment ahead of The CBR’s deadline.