By Laura Contemori – ROME (Econostream) – Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI) said Thursday it had securitized a corporate loan portfolio worth €3.3 billion.

The portfolio consists of corporate loans mainly in Austria, Slovakia, Germany and the Czech Republic. In the synthetic securitization, the portfolio was split into senior, mezzanine and junior risk positions.

International institutional investors assumed the credit risk of the mezzanine tranche, while RBI retained the credit risk of the junior and senior tranches.

According to RBI, the transaction will have no impact on customer relations and is expected to strengthen the bank’s Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratio at group level by around 16bp.

“Securitizations are an important capital optimization instrument for our group to strengthen our CET1 ratio and to support the growth of RBI Group through the transfer of risk,” said RBI CFO Kamila Makhmudova.

“Based on the trusted relationship with investors, we were able to execute this transaction even in times of increased uncertainties,” she said.