OREANDA-NEWS. July 10, 2015. KfW has raised around EUR 30bn in international capital markets by June 30 of this year. With a range of EUR 55-60bn the targeted funding volume for the whole of 2015 remains stable.

KfW’s crisis proven “Three-Pillar-Strategy” served as a strong backbone within extremely challenging markets affected by the QE-programme of the ECB and woes around Greece. As a consequence, KfW tapped the market only with some reservation under its EUR-Programme in the first half of this year and issued only two global bonds with maturities of 7 and 10 years. Furthermore, KfW issued a EUR 2bn 15-year transaction outside the global format, which is the largest in the segment of supras and agencies since the start of the year. With over 70%, the bulk of the funding was raised in foreign currencies with USD accounting for over 50% alone. This marks a historical high and is a direct consequence of KfW’s excellent access to the USD-market. Four USD-Globals amounting to USD 15bn were issued under KfW’s USD-Programme across the whole maturity spectrum from 3- to 10-years. “We see a structural shift in demand. On the one hand, regulation increasingly requires banks to buy safe and liquid assets such as KfW bonds. On the other hand, we have seen central banks less active”, Dr. G?nther Br?unig, the member of the Executive Board of KfW Bankengruppe in charge of capital markets, comments the changes of demand in USD.

Further highlights of the increasingly international funding activities are KfW’s inaugural NZD 650m Kauri-Bond, named after the largest endemic tree-species in New Zealand, and which specifically appeals to domestic investors, and its first AUD-Green-Kangaroo-Bond.

Within the seminal market of the Chinese Renminbi KfW was able to issue CNY 2.85bn (CNY 1bn previous year) until June 30th. “Our transactions 2015 are all Frankfurt listed. We keep supporting the initiative for establishing Frankfurt as a financial hub for the Chinese Renminbi. While this won’t happen overnight, we believe that the market will grow significantly in importance going forward”, Br?unig depicts his vision.

For the second half of 2015 KfW expects a continuation of the trend of the first six months. “Peculiar markets require a very flexible funding strategy. Our task is to most efficiently fund our promotional but also the increasing international activities. Thus, if necessary we are prepared to skip certain bond-maturities we typically offered in the past under our EUR-programme. The same degree of flexibility may be required as to the typical size of the issues. Overall, I expect a higher share of funding in foreign currencies, also in our greenbond format”, Br?unig explains the situation.

Pursuant to its announcement of last December on expanding its greenbond approach, KfW issued the largest ever Green-Kangaroo-Bond with a volume of AUD 600m in March 2015. The greenbond market becomes increasingly diversified with new issuers and currencies, and KfW intends to support this development by issuing greenbonds in further currencies while also offering EUR and USD.

“Transparency and impact reporting are increasingly in the centre of interest. Here we feel very well positioned within our issuance activities. Also within our greenbond portfolio, investments need to comply with our own high standards as to transparency as well as reporting, and issuers need to provide a second party opinion for their greenbonds”, Br?unig highlights.

Following its announcement of April 2015 to build a greenbond portfolio of up to EUR 1bn, per the end of June KfW found around EUR 134m of investment opportunities qualifying under its own strict taxonomy and consisting of issues from SSAs as well as banks and corporates.

KfW’s ABS-investments as an instrument to promote financing options for small and mid-sized enterprises in Germany amounted to EUR 360m by the end of June. Going forward, KfW intends to expand those activities into Europe as a means of supporting the initiative of the European Commission for more growth in Europe, the so-called “Juncker-Plan”. “Thereby we aim at closely cooperating with the European Investment Bank, the European Investment Fund as well as other promotional banks”, Br?unig comments on KfW’s role as to the contribution to European growth. “We believe securizations can substantially facilitate access to credit and for that matter stimulate growth. One important prerequisite for re-animating this market as an instrument for financing, risk-transfer and balance sheet management is an appropriate regulatory framework that helps creating a level playing field for securizations and comparable financial instruments. Hence, we support the concept of ‘High-Quality-Securizations’ and share our expertise within the ongoing consultations on a pan-European level to bring this market forward”, Br?unig concludes.