Australia and New Zealand Banking Group launched and priced a new A$3.25 billion senior unsecured transaction yesterday, consisting of two tranches of floating rate notes: A$1.0 billion three-year notes, due 6 December 2021, and A$2.25 billion five-year notes, due 6 December 2023. The notes were priced at coupon rates of 82 basis points and 103 bps, respectively, over three-month BBSW. Both FRN tranches were issued at par (no discount or premium to face value). The shorter-dated notes priced in line with guidance, while the five-year paper priced 2 bps tighter than guidance.  ANZ was the sole lead manager. Pepper Group, following a well-worn playbook, has chosen the ASF annual conference to launch a loan securitisation deal.  According to a Moody's pre-sale report, each of the classes of notes is backed by a mix of Pepper's own non-conforming and prime residential mortgages, including credit impairment (around 22 per cent), and loans underwritten on an alternative or low documentation basis (35 per cent). The top four tranches of A1 notes have been assigned (P) Aaa (sf) preliminary ratings by Moody's, as have the A$111 million class A2 notes. Pepper proposes to issue a US$215 million tranche of Class A1 notes, while at least one EUR-denominated and one AUD-denominated tranche of A1 notes are backed by a collateral pool of "green mortgages" - ie, used to finance buildings to a certified energy efficiency - along with six other classes of subordinated notes. The RBA's head of payments policy, Tony Richards, attempted to talk up the prospects of the New Payments Platform at Australian Payment Summit in Sydney yesterday. "Concerns have been raised that the services offered through the NPP and the ways of accessing it are not yet meeting the needs of all entities," Richards told an audience of payments industry professionals. He also conceded that the rollout of the NPP was starting off "somewhat slower" than initially expected, although transaction volumes have been growing steadily since that comments a few weeks ago. With assistance from the ACCC, RBA is undertaking a consultation on NPP functionality and access with submissions due on 30 November 2018. The New Zealand credit union industry association, Co-op Money, has had its credit rating downgraded two notches, from BB to B+, by Fitch. "The rating downgrade reflects Co-op Money NZ's tight liquidity, weakening capitalisation and increased likelihood that the association's core operations will remain unprofitable over the next 18 months," the rating agency said. "Co-op Money NZ's buffers and ability to withstand shocks remains limited. The stable outlook reflects Fitch's expectations that the negative trends are not likely to worsen significantly." Co-op Money recently reported an annual net loss of NZ$2.5 million. Australian-owned banks operating in New Zealand - and particularly ANZ - are the focus of a report by pressure group 350 Aotearoa singling them out as the worst offenders for "funding climate change". The