The Australian Securitisation Forum (ASF) has launched a new policy platform that proposes a range of initiatives to restore liquidity to Australia’s securitisation markets and maintain competition in the mortgage market.
The peak securitisation industry body’s policy measures comprise a range of proposals to tackle short-term issues as well as longer-term structural change.
They are aimed at “driving competition and innovation, improving transparency and liquidity and addressing the dislocation in Australia’s securitisation markets,” according to ASF chief executive Greg Medcraft.
The platform’s launch follows a fall in residential mortgage backed securitisation (RMBS) issuance in the six months to June 2008 to just A$1.9 billion compared to A$47 billion a year earlier, he said.
“Australia’s securitisation market has been battered by the global credit crisis, with the RMBS market experiencing the heaviest casualties.
“Many lenders have either ceased new lending or left the market, with the end result [being] fewer opportunities for investors and curtailed competition in the mortgage market,” he said.