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What Is
Securitization?

Andreas Jobst

he subprime mortgage crisis that began in 2007

has given the decades-old concept of securitization
a bad name. Securitization is the process in which
certain types of assets are pooled so that they can be
repackaged into interest-bearing securities. The interest and
principal payments from the assets are passed through to the
purchasers of the securities.
Securitization got its start in the 1970s, when home mortgages were pooled by U.S. government-backed agencies.
Starting in the 1980s, other income-producing assets began to
be securitized, and in recent years the market has grown dramatically. In some markets, such as those for securities backed
by risky subprime mortgages in the United States, the unexpected deterioration in the quality of some of the underlying
assets undermined investor confidence. Both the scale and
persistence of the attendant credit crisis seem to suggest that
securitizationtogether with poor credit origination, inadequate valuation methods, and insufficient regulatory oversightcould severely hurt financial stability.
Increasing numbers of financial institutions employ securitization to transfer the credit risk of the assets they originate
from their balance sheets to those of other financial institutions, such as banks, insurance companies, and
hedge funds.
Author: B2B, 6/28/08
They do it for a variety reasons. It is oftenProof
cheaper to raise
money through securitization, and securitized assets were then
less costly for banks to hold because
financial regulators had different standards for them than for the assets that
underpinned them. In principle, this
originate and distribute approach
brought broad economic benefits
toospreading out credit exposures,
thereby diffusing risk concentrations
Asset originator
and reducing systemic vulnerabilities.
Until the subprime crisis unfolded,
Underlying assets
the impact of securitization appeared
Reference
largely to be positive and benign. But
portfolio
securitization also has been indicted
(collateral)
by some for compromising the incentives for originators to ensure minimum standards of prudent lending,
risk management, and investment, at a
time when low returns on conventional
48 Finance & Development September 2008

debt products, default rates below the historical experience,

and the wide availability of hedging tools were encouraging
investors to take more risk to achieve a higher yield. Many of
the loans were not kept on the balance sheets of those who
securitized them, perhaps encouraging originators to cut back
on screening and monitoring borrowers, resulting possibly in
a systematic deterioration of lending and collateral standards.

The securitization process

In its most basic form, the process involves two steps (see chart).
In step one, a company with loans or other income-producing
assetsthe originatoridentifies the assets it wants to remove
from its balance sheet and pools them into what is called the
reference portfolio. It then sells this asset pool to an issuer, such
as a special purpose vehicle (SPV)an entity set up, usually by
a financial institution, specifically to purchase the assets and realize their off-balance-sheet treatment for legal and accounting
purposes. In step two, the issuer finances the acquisition of the
pooled assets by issuing tradable, interest-bearing securities that
are sold to capital market investors. The investors receive fixed
or floating rate payments from a trustee account funded by the
cash flows generated by the reference portfolio. In most cases,
the originator services the loans in the portfolio, collects payments from the original borrowers, and passes them onless
a servicing feedirectly to the SPV or the trustee. In essence,

How securitization works

Transfer of assets
from the originator to
the issuing vehicle
1

SPV issues debt

securities (assetbacked) to investors

Issuing agent
(e.g., special purpose
vehicle [SPV])

Assets immune
from bankruptcy
of seller
Originator
retains no legal
interest in assets

Typically structured
into various
classes/tranches,
rated by one or
more rating
agencies

Capital market
investors
Issues
asset-backed
securities
Senior tranche(s)
Mezzanine
tranche(s)
Junior tranche

securitization represents an alternative and diversified source of

finance based on the transfer of credit risk (and possibly also
interest rate and currency risk) from issuers to investors.
In a more recent refinement, the reference portfolio is
divided into several slices, called tranches, each of which
has a different level of risk associated with it and is sold
separately. Both investment return (principal and interest repayment) and losses are allocated among the various
tranches according to their seniority. The least risky tranche,
for example, has first call on the income generated by the
underlying assets, while the riskiest has last claim on that
income. The conventional securitization structure assumes
a three-tier security designjunior, mezzanine, and senior
tranches. This structure concentrates expected portfolio
losses in the junior, or first loss position, which is usually the
smallest of the tranches but the one that bears most of the
credit exposure and receives the highest return. There is little expectation of portfolio losses in senior tranches, which,
because investors often finance their purchase by borrowing, are very sensitive to changes in underlying asset quality. It was this sensitivity that was the initial source of the
problems in the subprime mortgage market last year. When
repayment issues surfaced in the riskiest tranches, lack of
confidence spread to holders of more senior tranches
causing panic among investors and a flight into safer assets,
resulting in a fire sale of securitized debt.
Securitization was initially used to finance simple, selfliquidating assets such as mortgages. But any type of asset
with a stable cash flow can in principle be structured into a
reference portfolio that supports securitized debt. Securities
can be backed not only by mortgages but by corporate and
sovereign loans, consumer credit, project finance, lease/trade
receivables, and individualized lending agreements. The
generic name for such instruments is asset-backed securities (ABS), although securitization transactions backed by
mortgage loans (residential or commercial) are called mortgage-backed securities. A variant is the collateralized debt
obligation, which uses the same structuring technology as an
ABS but includes a wider and more diverse range of assets.

The allure of securitizing

Securitization started as a way for financial institutions and
corporations to find new sources of fundingeither by moving assets off their balance sheets or by borrowing against
them to refinance their origination at a fair market rate. It reduced their borrowing costs and, in the case of banks, lowered
regulatory minimum capital requirements.
For example, suppose a leasing company needed to raise
cash. Under standard procedures, the company would take
out a loan or sell bonds. Its ability to do so, and the cost,
would depend on its overall financial health and credit rating.
If it could find buyers, it could sell some of the leases directly,
effectively converting a future income stream to cash. The
problem is that there is virtually no secondary market for
individual leases. But by pooling those leases, the company
can raise cash by selling the package to an issuer, which in
turn converts the pool of leases into a tradable security.

Moreover, the assets are detached from the originators

balance sheet (and its credit rating), allowing issuers to raise
funds to finance the purchase of assets more cheaply than
would be possible on the strength of the originators balance
sheet alone. For instance, a company with an overall B rating with AAA-rated assets on its books might be able to
raise funds at an AAA rather than B rating by securitizing
those assets. Unlike conventional debt, securitization does
not inflate a companys liabilities. Instead it produces funds
for future investment without balance sheet growth.
Investors benefit from more than just a greater range of
investible assets made available through securitization. The
flexibility of securitization transactions also helps issuers tailor the risk-return properties of tranches to the risk tolerance
of investors. For instance, pension funds and other collective
investment schemes require a diverse range of highly rated
long-term fixed-income investments beyond what the public debt issuance by governments can provide. If securitized
debt is traded, investors can quickly adjust their individual
exposure to credit-sensitive assets in response to changes in
personal risk sensitivity, market sentiment, and consumption
preferences at low transaction cost.
Sometimes the originators do not sell the securities outright to the issuer (called true sale securitization) but
instead sell only the credit risk associated with the assets
without the transfer of legal title (synthetic securitization).
Synthetic securitization helps issuers exploit price differences
between the acquired (and often illiquid) assets and the price
investors are willing to pay for them (if diversified in a greater
pool of assets).

Growth of securitization
The landscape of securitization has changed dramatically in
the last decade. No longer is it wed to traditional assets with
specific terms such as mortgages, bank loans, or consumer
loans (called self-liquidating assets). Improved modeling and
risk quantification as well as greater data availability have
encouraged issuers to consider a wider variety of asset types,
including home equity loans, lease receivables, and small
business loans, to name a few. Although most issuance is
concentrated in mature markets, securitization has also registered significant growth in emerging markets, where large
and highly rated corporate entities and banks have used securitization to turn future cash flow from hard-currency export
receivables or remittances into current cash.
In the future, securitized products are likely to become
simpler. After years of posting virtually no capital reserves
against highly rated securitized debt, issuers will soon be
faced with regulatory changes that will require higher capital
charges and more comprehensive valuation. Reviving securitization transactions and restoring investor confidence might
also require issuers to retain interest in the performance of
securitized assets at each level of seniority, not just the junior
tranche. n
Andreas Jobst is an Economist in the IMFs Monetary and
Capital Markets Department.
Finance & Development September 2008 49