BBVA has today (14 January 2022) announced its inaugural synthetic securitisation of a portfolio of assets with project finance loans in a first for the bank.

The Spanish bank entered a credit risk sharing agreement with Swedish pension fund Alecta and Dutch not for profit super PGGM relating to a €500 million ($573m) loan book, covering projects in Spain and Western Europe.

The portfolio is a cross-section of BBVA’s overall project finance loan book. Around a third of the loans in the portfolio relate to renewable energy projects.

BBVA will retain 20% risk alignment for each of the projects in the portfolio. BBVA has been using synthetic securitisation to capitalise its small- and medium-sized lending activities, but this is the bank’s first transaction with project finance loans.

PGGM senior director Angélique Pieterse said: “The longer-dated profile of loans to infrastructure, social and energy related projects fits well with the long-term, buy-and-hold approach of our mandate.

“The transaction reflects both our and our end-investor PFZW’s ambition to contribute to the sustainable development goals and we hope there will be many more transactions to follow!”