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Finance

Finance

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 issued €1.5 billion at 5 years, at fixed interest. It is its first issue of senior non-preferred debt, a new category of liability with the capacity to absorb losses, that allows financial institutions in the European Union to comply with MREL requirements. The issue has been a success, with demand of around €5 billion, allowing it to close with the lowest price in Europe at this maturity, 70 basis points above the mid-swap rate, and a coupon of 0.75%.

On March 25, 1957, representatives from the six founding countries of the European Community put their signatures to the Treaties of Rome, consisting of blank pages due to a problem with the printing. Sixty years on, Europe "is an enormous success", but today it also has "blank pages still to be filled in" for the project to continue with its process of completion. This was the metaphor used by Jose Manuel González-Páramo, the CEO of BBVA, to describe the current situation of the EU.

Once more this year, the symposium of the most important central bankers in the world was held in Jackson Hole from August 24 to 26. Under scrutiny were Janet Yellen, the Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve and Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank. Their words gave no indications of any changes with respect to the future of monetary policy.