Schwäbisch Hall Green benchmark debut

Absolutely – our first Green Pfandbrief met with overwhelming demand on the market: The 500 million issue was 4.4 times oversubscribed with an order volume of around 2.2 billion euros. We have never had such a large order book at Schwäbisch Hall. The efforts of everyone involved over the past few months have paid off. We are particularly pleased that we were able to attract numerous new investors to our first green issue.

As a cooperative building society, we have had a clear goal for almost 100 years: to get our customers into their own homes. Whether it’s sustainable new buildings or energy-efficient refurbishments of existing properties – as the largest building society and one of Germany’s largest mortgage lenders, we provide a significant proportion of the financing required for the sustainable transformation of the residential building sector. The Green Pfandbrief is an important funding element for this. It helps to achieve environmental goals: among our investors, our customers and ourselves.

Our green cover pool consists of low-risk private mortgage loans. It is highly granular and broadly diversified across Germany. The importance of energy-efficient housing will continue to increase in the future. We therefore expect to see steady growth in green loans in the future.

With the Green Pfandbrief, Pfandbrief banks have set a market standard that allows green issues to be carried out on a regular basis. We want to continue to use it regularly in the future. In our view, however, “traditional” Pfandbriefe are by no means losing importance. Rather, it depends on the right mix.