Julián Romero is Head of the Sustainable Bond Group in BBVA’s lending department. As Head of this group of experts whose mission is to bring BBVA’s clients opportunities related to sustainable finance in the capital markets, he gives us an analysis of the potential of green bonds in Latin America.

2018 has been a year of consolidation for green, social, and sustainable bonds as sources of financing in capital markets, as their solid growth demonstrates. So far, the global market for these sustainable financial instruments has reached the equivalent of €71 million euros, according to Dealogic. In Spain alone, the volume of green bonds issued in 2018 has already exceeded the amount issued in 2017.

What does it mean when we say a bank is the ‘bookrunner’ for a deal? Or if a financial institution has acted as the ‘lead manager’ or ‘lead arranger’? These are just some or the roles that banks can play in bond issuances and loan transactions.

BBVA Group unit Garanti Bank in conjunction with the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) has issued a six-year social bond worth $75 million dollars to help finance women entrepreneurs in Turkey.

As flagged in the announcement of its strategy for climate change and sustainable development in its contribution to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, BBVA has unveiled its framework for the issue of SDG-linked sustainable bonds.

Bonds and loans are financing instruments used at one moment or other by companies during the course of their existence. These are two conceptually different credit products that are sometimes confused. It is important to differentiate between both means of financing and understand their characteristics in order to know their true essence.

BBVA has teamed up with several global banks to become a member of the Standard Repackaging Documentation platform (SRD). This initiative is a response to investors’ demands for standardization of repackaging transactions. BBVA is the only Spanish bank involved.

Over the past three years, the asset allocation team of BBVA Asset Management has overhauled its investment process to bring as much objectivity as possible to decision-making when building a portfolio. Based on the principles of behavioral economics, the new process aims to determine how the power of the mind affects financial decisions.

During 2017, their tenth anniversary year, green bonds marked a new record for issuances. The growing awareness of companies and investors about these assets, along with the high level of liquidity in the system, pushed the volume of green issuances in 2017 to $131 billion—a 52% increase over 2016.

Today marks the second anniversary of death of David Bowie, a pop icon who needs no introduction. Hundreds of lines have been written about his life, career and concerts. But what many are not aware of is that Bowie was also a pioneer in the financial world: he was the first artist ever to issue a “celebrity bond.”

Positive market conditions and investor appetite have helped BBVA to get an excellent reception for its sixth issue of CoCos. The Group has issued a $1 billion bond, with the lowest coupon in dollars for an issuer from southern Europe (6.125%), and the longest maturity (perpetual, with a ‘call’ option starting in the tenth year). Registration of a prospectus with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has prompted a bigger participation from American, European and Asian investors.

The country risk premium is the return that investors demand from a country to buy its sovereign bonds in comparison with that demanded from other countries. It is calculated as the difference between the interest rate of a country’s bonds compared to bonds issued by a benchmark country, considered “riskless.”

Credit ratings are estimates that gauge the ability of a company, public administration or financial product to meet their financial commitments. In many cases they are taken as key indicators in capital markets when making investment decisions.

In a context in which companies are increasingly aware of the importance of sustainability, green bonds have established themselves as a financing alternative. In 2016, more than $87 billion in green bonds were issued worldwide, more than double the $42 billion in 2015. According to estimates by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, in 2017 the volume of green bonds issued globally could reach $123 billion.

BBVA has joined a group of 14 banks that have made a commitment to the United Nations Environment Programme – Finance Initiative (UNEP-FI) to implement the recommendations on financing and climate change published by the Financial Stability Board in July in the framework of the G20.

This week marks yet another milestone for BBVA in green financing in Europe. SSE, the largest producer of renewable energy in the UK, chose BBVA to act as green structuring bank and joint bookrunner on its inaugural EUR 600 million green bond. This is the biggest-ever green bond issued by a UK company, and the financing will be destined to the refinancing of onshore wind farms in SSE’s energy generation portfolio.

BBVA has signed a 240 million euro sustainable loan in favor of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, the first loan of this kind granted by the bank to an autonomous region in Spain.

Mario Draghi did not surprise anyone yesterday. As expected, the European Central Bank (ECB) unanimously decided to leave interest rates unchanged. He also did not announce any immediate changes to the asset purchase program. However, he did offer some clues as to the direction the ECB will follow after the summer.  As BBVA Research notes in its ECB Watch report, the discussion on gradually tapering QE (Quantitative Easing, the ECB´s asset purchase program) will take place in the fall – most likely in September.

Garanti Bank signed an agreement with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) for 5-year term funding in the amount of Euro 75 million equivalent under the Covered Bond Programme. Thanks to this financing, the first transaction settled with EBRD in TL and covered bond format, Garanti aims to boost the expansion of Green Mortgage loans and to protect the future generations with environmentally-friendly buildings.

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the first green bond, in which BBVA participated. The bonds were issued by the European Investment Bank. Since then, a wide range of financial and non-financial corporate issuers have turned to the markets to issue this type of debt securities, accelerating growth of the market to its current volume of $210 billion. This year, important changes have been made that could increase green issues to $120 billion.

The BBVA Group released today a new presentation for fixed income analysts and investors. The presentation will be updated on a quarterly basis.  The document offers detailed information about BBVA Group’s fundamentals and strategy in a number of fields of relevance for the market, with a special focus on credit quality, as well as the BBVA Group’s liquidity and capital adequacy position.

In an environment where companies are becoming increasingly aware about the importance of sustainability, green bonds are taking hold as a funding alternative: In 2016 global green bond issues reached $87 billion, a record level after closing at $42 billion in 2015.

In a year marked by the reactivation of the high-yield bond market, and growing investor interest on ultra-long issue maturities, and despite a string of global macroeconomic developments that had a severe impact on the fixed income market, BBVA performed remarkably well in the bond origination market, even managing to surpass the total volume it placed in the market in 2015.

Last Thursday, BBVA launched its first public debt issue of 2017: A 1 billion euro 5-year senior unsecured bond. The bank completed the transaction with the lowest coupon in history (0.625%) for this type of product, with this maturity, for a Spanish issuer.

BBVA issued €1 billion of mortgage covered bonds this morning at a very competitive price (midswap+23 basis points). This is the cheapest issue of covered bonds made by a Spanish bank in 2016.