RBS: Repo Shift Helps Portugal, Irish CMBS

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) analysts said in their weekly report that the European Central Bank’s (ECB) decision last Friday to relax its repo criteria will revive CMBS issuance from lower-rated countries — namely Portugal and Ireland.

Specifically, they believe that originators from these sovereigns will be able to structure retained securitizations in order to access the ECB’s liquidity window due to the new changes. The impact on the other peripheral euro countries will be negligible since Spanish banks already meet the ECB’s minimum 'A-' rating criteria, and Greek banks are even too low rated to meet the new lowered rating threshold.