Securitisation Essay

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What do you understand by the term ”securitisation” of bank loans, and why might a bank choose to securitise some of its loans?
Securitization dates back to the late 20th century when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development created the first modern residential mortgage-backed security . The term securitisation refers to the transformation of illiquid, non-marketed assets into liquid, marketable assets, i.e. securities. It is a product of financial innovation, an instrument that aims to shift credit risk from loan originators to other counterparties. Securitisation is basically a derivative which allows credit risk to be shifted, traded, insured and taken by institutions without them actually being the originators of loans.
Financial intermediaries can create more diverse loan offerings via the use of securitisation, the creation of tradable assets out of non-tradable ones. An example is banks selling off loans from their asset portfolio by turning them into marketable securities. A bank may create a pool of mortgage loans and then issue bonds backed by these mortgage loans. Securitisation thereby converts illiquid assets into liquid ones and shifts them off the balance sheet.
For example, let’s say there is a bank and on the asset side of the balance sheet it has a number of loans, i.e. it made loans to other parties who are paying interest on that, instead of holding the loans on its balance sheet, which requires the bank to have capital and limits to some extent the number of loans that it can make because the amount of equities and liabilities that we have on the right side of the balance sheet determine how much the bank must own in assets on the left side of the balance sheet. Therefore, the amount of cash the ...

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There are mainly two incentives for the application of ABS transactions by banks. Firstly, banks use credit securitization as an alternative funding mode to emitting deposits.15 The second motive for the application of asset-backed securities is that they enable banks to transfer both market risks and credit risk out of the bank.

Blythe Masters, the inventor of credit derivatives states she does believe CDSs have been miscast, much as poor workmen tend to blame their tools. Tools that transfer risk can also increase systemic risk if major counterparties fail to manage their exposures properly.
In April 2010 she told the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliament that "there are definitely lessons that have to be learnt. I for one feel that I have learnt from that experience and there are things I may like to have seen done differently"

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