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Top Euro role for Irish Stock Exchange

Thursday, November 15 10:27:28

The Irish Stock Exchange has been appointed to a key role in a new European initiative designed to provide the benchmark standard for the asset backed securities market.

The new initiative is led by an organisation called Prime Collateralised Securities [PCS]. PCS is an industry-led, non-profit initiative set up to develop a label for high quality securitisations. The Board of the PCS includes some of the most senior figures in European finance including former executives of the ECB and the European Investment Bank (EIB).

The ISE is one of three screening partners appointed by PCS to check documentation relevant to the screening process. The PCS label will be awarded to asset-backed securities that comply with published standards that are indicative of simplicity, asset quality and transparency and reflect some of the best practices available in the European securitisation market. A total of E126.9 billion of securitised debt products were issued in Europe in the first half of 2012.

The PCS initiative comes at a time when access to securitisation markets for issuers (corporates and banks) is increasingly important to overcome funding shortfalls will stimulate Europe's broader economic recovery. Asset Backed Securities can be an important instrument, especially as they do not use up the same credit line capacity as other investments, such as corporate and covered bonds.

"The ISE is delighted to have been chosen as a screening partner for PCS. As a constant advocate for greater transparency within the structured product markets, we are confident that the PCS initiative, alongside more positive regulatory signals from Europe's policymakers, will provide a significant boost to Europe's securitisation market, which is so important to fund economic growth across the European Union," Deirdre Somers, Chief Executive of the ISE, said.