It’s that time of the year again when the world of wholesale funding descends on the wonderful City of Barcelona for the Global ABS conference. Around 4000 professionals who work in the industry are here from across the world.
For me, this year feels a little more subdued that in recent years – it’s not surprising bearing in mind that the market was more hopeful than ever that 2026 was to be the year where the industry really bounced back, but in reality yet another event causing market uncertainty has once again knocked market confidence.
From Covid to the Truss Budget, the Ukraine and Iran Wars, Trump’s tariffs and the UK with a Government that seems to be completely out of its depth, the 2020’s as a whole have been a tough slog for many parties to the mortgage and structured finance sectors with so much uncertainty in the markets.
But there are some real success stories such as Lendco and Keystone that continue to originate good quality lending and successfully securitise.
If you are looking to launch a new lender or transform an existing business, these are two businesses that really are great blueprints for success.
FALSE MFS NEWS
Clearly, the MFS debacle is a hot topic, with questions being asked of many parties involved with the lender.
Unfortunately, rumours around this type of episode will often develop incorrectly, with false news circulating on some third parties who were working with the lender becoming intwined with reality.
Fundamentally, this is unhelpful and only serves to create further uncertainty in the market which is what nobody needs at the moment.
TIGHTENED CHECKS
What the issue has once again highlighted is the necessity to really tighten up KYC & AML checks as part of the originations process.
Once a loan is completed, this type of fraud can be difficult to spot (as proven) but innovation is coming to the market.
I have had a couple of really interesting conversations around master / back-up servicing, and I suspect new propositions in this area will launch to provide a failsafe solution that will massively reduce the chance of this happening again.
ELECTRONIC LOAN REGISTRY
But as well as tightening originations processes, it’s great to see some software coming to market to analyse back books for potential double pledges.
What sounds a really good product coming to the UK is MIAC’s SAFeR software product.
This software is an electronic loan registry that prevents pledging a loan to multiple lenders.
MIAC is a strategic partner of Phoebus, and so I hope that we can introduce clients and prospects to this product in the not too distant future.
So, on to day two and a full day of meetings today and then more networking tonight. I would like to offer my thanks to all who sponsor the various events on an evening which are really productive and excellent for meeting with connections new and old.
