News - PCS

Read

28/07/2022

EBA publishes consultation on updated homogeneity

The European Banking Authority has just launched a consultation on the homogeneity of the underlying exposures in STS securitisation. The consultation is addressing the issue of the homogeneity in the context of synthetic STS securitisation. Although the scope is extended to also cover on-balance-sheet (synthetic) securitisations, at the same time it establishes the same criteria for the assessment of homogeneity for all securitisations. More specifically, given the relevance of corporate and SME loans in the context of synthetic securitisations, adjustments have been made to the type of obligor to reflect the current market practices and the credit risk assessment approaches […]

Read

18/07/2022

PCS files its response to EIOPA’s consultation

PCS filed its response to EIOPA’s disappointing consultation on a possible reform of the capital requirements for insurance companies investing in securitisations. The response may be found here. The consultation was, in our view, a major disappointment. EIOPA’s preliminary conclusions – underlined by their statements at a public roundtable attended by PCS – were that the current framework was “fit for purpose”. For all the reasons set out in our response, PCS feels that this is not borne out by the facts and that the assertion itself as set out in EIOPA’s consultation document feels more like an “act of […]

Read

02/07/2022

PCS responds to the Joint-Committee's Consultation on Sustainable Disclosure for STS

PCS has responded to the Joint-Committee of the European Supervisory Authorities on its consultation regarding the optional disclosure relating to sustainability of the assets securitised through an STS transaction. Our response can be read here. Acknowledging the very narrow mandate that had been given the Joint-Committee and the challenges this posed, PCS nevertheless believes that this was the wrong mandate, at the wrong time for far too narrow a sub-set of capital market instruments. Through no fault of the committee, this feels like another siloed regulatory endeavour that risks again punishing unnecessarily securitisation and tilting yet further an already unlevel […]

Read

01/07/2022

PCS European Symposia Series 2022-23

Following its successful launch in Warsaw and Lisbon, PCS is proud to confirm the remainder of its European Symposia Series with confirmed dates for Athens (20 September) and Helsinki (22 September) and to be announced dates for Milan, Dublin, Madrid, Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt and London Securitisation – an indispensable tool for growth and capital management Each event will be devoted to the securitisation market generally as well as in the local market. It will cover fundamental principles as well as discuss the most recent market and regulatory developments. It will explore the benefits of securitisation, as a crucial mechanism for […]

Read

17/06/2022

The Cinderella Regulation - EIOPA launches a consultation on Solvency II capital

We have previously referred to the issue of capital calibration for securitisations purchased by insurance undertaking as the "Cinderella issue". Of all the issues on which the European Commission has asked the ESA's to provide advice, it is both the least noticed and yet, in our view, the most important of the unfinished reforms begun with the passing of the Securitisation Regulation. Today, insurance companies are holding a minuscule percentage of securitisations in their books - just above 2%. Their holdings of high quality STS securitisations are in homeopathic amounts at around 0.05%. Yet, if we are to see a […]

Read

12/06/2022

PCS welcomes two new members

The PCS initiative is honoured to welcome two new members in DLA Piper and Morgan Lewis. DLA Piper is a global law firm with lawyers and tax advisors located in more than 40 countries around the world. The firm has extensive experience advising on a wide array of ABS transactions in Europe and the US including CLOs, CMBS, RMBS and consumer loan securitisations as well as the securitisation of assets such as renewable energy and energy efficiency assets, project loans, trade receivables and SME loans. Morgan Lewis has been a key player in the securitisation markets since their inception and […]

Read

08/06/2022

June 2022 Newsletter

Read

02/03/2022

EBA publishes excellent report of "Green Securitisation"

Today the European Banking Authority released its Report on Developing a Framework for Sustainable Securitisation. This report was requested by the co-legislators who asked the EBA to outline how they would envisage a regime for green securitisation. Although PCS still has to review the report in detail, a first look suggests that the EBA should be commended for the logical, coherent and fair approach it has brought to bear of this subject. First, the EBA has concluded that there is no need or rationale for having a conceptually different approach to the definition and regulation of green securitisations from that […]

Read

14/12/2021

2021 - The STS Year in Review

Read

13/12/2021

UK Treasury publishes report on the review of the securitisation regime

The UK Treasury just released its report on the review of the securitisation regime. The overall impression is that the UK government is broadly happy with the current regime and is certainly not evincing any wish to tear up the rule book or effect radical changes to the regime inherited from the EU Securitisation Regulation. This report is about tweaking not transforming. A number of technical issues are broached, some small – but not insignificant – changes are mooted but the report is light on concrete proposals or time frames. On many of the issues where the report does suggest […]

Read

11/11/2021

Green securitisation - ECB adds its voice in support of the "green proceeds" approach

The European Central Bank has just published its opinion on the draft EU Green Bond Standard legislation. Overall an excellent piece, it is notable when it comes to securitisation for its support for a definition of green that encompasses issuance where the proceeds are used by the originator to finance sustainable projects. This can be found in article 3.1.5 of their opinion. As our readers will recall, a debate arose as to whether the legal EU definition of sustainable securitisation should be limited solely to securitisations of green assets (eg mortgages of green housing or auto loans for electric vehicles) […]

Read

27/10/2021

October 2021 Newsletter

Read

27/10/2021

Commission's Call for Evidence on Securitisation - progress...but ever so slow

In the securitisation consultation which closed last month, the Commission wrote that it would issue a call for evidence to the Joint Committee of the ESAs on the key unfinished parts of the STS reform - namely capital calibrations and LCR treatment. True to its word, the Commission has now issued this call for evidence (found here). The good news is that it seems to cover all the items needing to be covered including the capital calibrations for both bank and insurance investors and the treatment of securitisations for the liquidity coverage ratio. It also name checks the excellent report […]

Read

25/07/2021

European Commission consults on securitisation

In line with the traditional review process, the European Commission has issued a consultation on the functioning of the EU’s securitisation framework. The deadline for the consultation is 17 September 2021. PCS will be responding, of course, and strongly encourages all market stakeholders to express their views. This is potentially an important milestone in completing the reforms started in 2019 but left unfinished. Repairing the issues that remained a problem would greatly help revitalising a key financing tool for the European economy.

Read

04/07/2021

Hellenic Financial Stability Fund joins the PCS Initiative

It is with great pleasure that PCS announces that the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF) has become a Permanent Observer of PCS. Founded in 2010 with the objective of contributing to the stability of the Greek banking system for the public interest, the HFSF has during that time contributed to the rescue and restructuring of the Greek systemic banks and acted as a catalyst for stability and transformation in the Greek banking system. We encourage you to find out more about the HFSF on their website: https://hfsf.gr/en/ PCS very much looks forward to the HFSF’s contribution to our work in […]

Read

27/06/2021

Final pieces of the puzzle fall into place - Data Repositories

On Friday 25th, the final pieces of the STS regulatory puzzle fell into place when ESMA registered two securitisation repositories. The registrations of both the European Datawarehouse GmbH, based in Frankfurt, and Secrep B.V. , based in Rotterdam, were announced on the same day. Both firms have long experience in the field, Secrep B.V. having been set up by the founders of Euro-ABS. Both will be able to operate throughout the EU. Following this registration, originators of European Union securitisations will - as of 30th June 2021 - mandatorily have to report their data through one of these repositories. This […]

Read

08/06/2021

June 2021 Newsletter

Read

18/05/2021

The Joint Committee of the ESAs’ report on securitisation is published

Today, the Joint Committee of the European Supervisory Authorities (EBA, ESMA and EIOPA) issued their long-awaited report on the regulation of European securitisation. This report was mandated in the 2017 Securitisation Regulation and was supposed to provide a “tour d’horizon” of how the regulation was functioning and whether it was achieving its stated objective of reviving a safe and sound securitisation market. An initial review of the report would suggest that it appears to be a significant missed opportunity to address the shortcomings of the current regulatory framework and consequent failure to revive the market, and that it has not drawn the firm […]

Read

06/04/2021

News Flash: securitisation rules to come into force on Friday

Today the new securitisation rules were published in the Official Journal. With the shortened time for coming into force, on which we reported earlier, this means that synthetic STS and improved NPL securitisation rules will come into force this week, on Friday 9th April.

Read

26/03/2021

European Parliament votes the new securitisation rules

Yesterday, in their plenary session, the European Parliament passed long anticipated amendments to the existing STS Regulation and concomitant changes to the Capital Requirement Regulation (CRR). This vote, which had been expected earlier in the year, looked like it had been derailed by a dispute over some of the tax focused provisions which would have potentially cut off access to the European market to Australian issuers. But, after some last minute negotiations between the Australians, the Parliament and Member States, an acceptable compromise was reached. To recap, the new securitisation rules contained in this legislative act allow certain synthetic on-balance […]

Read

18/02/2021

February 2021 Newsletter

Read

10/01/2021

Harry Noutsos joins PCS

PCS is very proud to announce that Harry Noutsos has joined us. Well known to a great many in the market, Harry has twenty years of experience is securitisation having worked at Credit Suisse, Santander and then ING where he was responsible for all the bank’s securitisation positions as well as assisting it in securitising its own assets. With his extensive background in both the buy side and the sell side, Harry is now part of PCS’ Outreach team where we look forward to his enthusiasm in deepening our relationships with all our stakeholders.

Read

04/01/2021

FCA STS list up and running

First, PCS wishes for all a new year more serene than the one just ended and hopes that the holiday season proved to be a source of joy and rest notwithstanding the various restrictions imposed by the pandemic. As they had promised, the UK FCA set up their website list for UK transactions wishing to be treated as STS in the hands of UK investors. As our attentive readers will recall, this was a necessary step for the STS regime to come into force in the United Kingdom on January 1st. It has been done. To save you from having […]

Read

10/12/2020

2020 - The STS Year in Review

Read

07/12/2020

A new ESAs statement and Brexit - Chronicles of a Death Foretold

The Joint Committee of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) has issued a statement clarifying the impact of Brexit on STS. It just confirms what we knew: existing STS transactions with a UK originator or sponsor or special purpose vehicle will cease to be STS in the hands of European Union investors. The only small additional point is timing. The rules grant CRR and LCR benefits to STS transactions. An STS transaction is a transaction that meets the requirements and appears on the ESMA list. Therefore, there was the possibility of a short grace period between 1st January 2021 and the […]

Read

23/11/2020

Monday sees important announcements from the EBA on SRT and the FCA on STS

Monday saw two important announcements from European regulators. First, the UK Financial Conduct Authority went live with its new STS notification platform. As of 11 pm on 31st December, UK securitisations will no longer be STS in the hands of UK investors unless they appear in a new publicly available list hosted by the FCA and replacing the ESMA list to which all securitisations were previously notified. To avoid a problematic interregnum between the time the new rules come into force at the end of the year and the time it takes for UK transactions previously notified to ESMA to […]

Read

28/10/2020

Chances of new synthetic STS and NPL rules applying to the United Kingdom recede

Yesterday, the ECON committee of the European Parliament pushed back to November 9th a key meeting to agree their version of the proposed amendments to the STS Regulation. This delay further reduces the already slim chances of the proposed changes beating the Brexit deadline for incorporation into the UK’s securitisation regime. For those who are not experts in the intricacies of placing European laws on the statute books, the key is to remember that under the UK Withdrawal Act, only European laws that are “in force” at 11.00pm London time on the 31st December 2020 will be UK laws going […]

Read

09/10/2020

October 2020 Newsletter

Read

09/09/2020

United Kingdom FCA publishes a consultation on the end of the Brexit transition period

Last Friday the UK Financial Conduct Authority published a consultation on some of the changes that may be made to their Handbook. Most important for stakeholders are the proposals for what happens at 11.00 pm London time on 31st December as the Brexit transition period comes to an end. This consultation, which may be found here, covers a number of Brexit topics in paragraph 4. These include (from paragraph 4.17 onwards) securitisation issues, namely data templates, data repositories, STS notifications, counterparty risks and risk retention. The consultation period ends on October 5th. With so many tricky issues of detail plaguing […]

Read

26/07/2020

First legislative steps taken to complete the STS reforms

On Friday 24th July, the European Commission took the first legislative steps to complete the reform of securitisation rules begun with the passage of the STS Regulation in 2017. As has been commented on by a number of stakeholders from both the public and the private sector (including PCS whose commentary may be found here), the STS Regulation has been a technical success but a strategic disappointment as it has failed to raise the volume of securitisation issuance. This is widely attributed to the absence of a number of additional steps that would be required for the reform fully to […]

« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 … 10 Next »