Feb

14

Brain Candy for Thursday

By Teresa | Filed Under Brain Candy | Start a Discussion 

In light of UBS posting yet another writedown, these two papers are almost a walk down memory lane. For better or for worse, securitization removed the double edge sword that had always tied the lender’s fate with that of the borrower. And now we know: it was for … worse.

  • Securitization: The Tool of Financial Transformation
    Securitization as a financial instrument has had an extremely significant impact on the world’s financial system. First, by integrating capital markets and the uses of resources - such as mortgage originators, finance companies, governments, etc. - it has strengthened the trend towards disintermediation. Having been able to mitigate agency costs, it has made lending more efficient; evidence of this can be observed in the mortgage markets. By permitting firms to originate and hold assets off the balance sheet, it has generated much higher levels of leverage and, though arguably, greater economies of scale. Combination of securitization techniques with credit derivatives and risk transfer devices continues to develop innovative methods of transforming risk into a commodity and allow various market participants to tap into sectors which were otherwise not open to them.
  • Collateralized Debt Obligations and Credit Risk Transfer
    In this article, we describe one of these new credit risk transfer vehicles, the collateralized debt obligation. Synthetic credit debt obligations utilize credit default swaps, another relatively new credit risk transfer vehicle. Financial institutions face five major risks: credit, interest rate, price, currency, and liquidity. The development of the derivatives markets prior to 1990 provided financial institutions with efficient vehicles for the transfer of interest rate, price, and currency risks, as well as enhancing the liquidity of the underlying assets. However, it is only in recent years that the market for the efficient transfer of credit risk has developed. Credit risk is the risk that a debt instrument will decline in value as a result of the borrower’s inability (real or perceived) to satisfy the contractual terms of its borrowing arrangement. In the case of corporate debt obligations, credit risk encompasses default, credit spread, and rating downgrade risks.

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