Mario Draghi must be delighted. The European Central Bank president's verbal intervention to calm the eurozone crisis has helped UniCredit to raise €750m in the first issue of covered bonds by an Italian bank this year. Whether the bank's success can be repeated remains to be seen, but it offers a ray of hope that the sovereign–bank feedback loop that has bedevilled Europe can be broken.

UniCredit can certainly feel pleased with the deal. Orders topped €2bn and close to 40% of the bonds, which are backed by Italian residential mortgages, were placed outside Italy. The five-and-a-half-year bond was priced to yield just over 4% - remarkably, a full percentage point less than the yield on a similar-maturity Italian government bond. In part that success reflects both UniCredit's own strength and factors specific to Italy: unlike their government, Italian households aren't overloaded with debt, making bonds backed by consumer debt such as mortgages a relatively attractive asset.