Press release

Royal Bank of Canada First North American Issuer to Join Covered Bond Label

The Covered Bond Label Foundation (CBLF) welcomes Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) as the first North American Issuer to join the Covered Bond Label. As such, RBC becomes the 82nd Issuer to hold the Label and brings the total number of labelled pools to 98.

Due to RBC’s accession, Canada becomes the 16th jurisdiction to be represented in the Covered Bond Label. This expansion to another new continent – following Singapore earlier this year – further strengthens the Label’s reach outside European markets.

Commenting on this development, Luca Bertalot, Covered Bond Label Foundation (CBLF) Administrator, stated:

“We are delighted to welcome Royal Bank of Canada on board. The support of the Canadian covered bond community for the Label shows that there is strong demand for transparency and convergence in covered bond markets in Europe and beyond, and underpins the global importance of the Covered Bond Label Initiative.”

The Covered Bond Label is a quality Label which responds to a market-wide request for improved standards and increased transparency in the covered bond market. The primary purpose of the Label is to highlight to investors the security and quality of covered bonds, and to further enhance recognition of and trust in the covered bond asset class. On the Covered Bond Label website, investors can retrieve key information, such as LCR eligibility, on over 4,200 different covered bonds.

Furthermore, the introduction of the Harmonised Transparency Template (HTT) requires the labelled issuers from all covered bond jurisdictions to disclose their cover pool information in a standardised way, regardless of their jurisdiction. As of the 1st of January 2017, all labelled issuers have to comply with the requirements of the 2017 Covered Bond Label Convention (available here), which entails disclosing their data by publishing the HTT.