The Australian Office of Financial Management advised the market late on Friday that it had sold A$50 million of fixed rate, bullet maturity RMBS from its portfolio. This is the first sale of mortgage-backed securities by the AOFM in two years.The AOFM said the sale was made as part of its portfolio management activity as well as to provide transparent pricing guidance to the market. The emphasis was clearly on the latter. The AOFM advised that the securities sold were five-year notes it purchased in November 2011 at a spread of 150 basis points over swap. The AOFM said it sold these notes at a spread of 132 bps over swap.While the AOFM did not advise who the issuer of the notes was, it is clear from the information provided that the issuer was ING Bank (Australia), through the IDOL Trust Series 2011-2. The AOFM sold all its holding of Class A2 notes from this trust.The notes (of which A$100 million were issued) were marked at 155 bps over swap on rate sheets on Friday night.There has been no RMBS issuance since December 2011 (when FirstMac sold mortgage bonds with the AOFM among the investors).The wide pricing of covered bond issues in January 2012 made RMBS issuance uneconomic thereafter. Perhaps the AOFM's action will help get the primary market started for 2012.