Covered bond

Covered bonds are debt securities backed by cash flows from mortgages or public sector loans. They are similar in ways to asset-backed securities created in securitization, but covered bond assets remain on the issuer’s consolidated balance sheet (usually with an appropriate capital charge). The covered bonds continue as obligations of the issuer (often a bank); in essence, the investor has recourse against the issuer and the collateral, sometimes known as "dual recourse." However, there exist other variable types where assets come off balance sheet. As of 2012 volume of outstanding covered bonds worldwide was euro2,813 billion, while largest markets were Germany (€525 bil.), Spain (€440 bil.), Denmark (€366 bil.) and France (€362 bil.).