Independent data provider Markit has successfully implemented the first integrated pricing and performance monitoring service for the European ABS market, covering CMBS, RMBS and CDO transactions. The service offers financial institutions the ability to track the value and performance of European ABS assets on a single platform.
"What we've done to date with our pricing service, and what no one else has been able to offer so far, is to provide the only service that is broker-contributed," said Ben Logan, managing director of structured finance at Markit. "This has gone and will continue to go a long way toward tackling the issue of transparency in the European RMBS, CMBS and CDO markets, and this new offering will leverage Markit's existing platforms."
"The reaction, so far, has been very positive, especially from first-year dealers and first-year buyside shops," Logan said. "A lot of companies have tried to provide parts of this information, but this is unique, drawing price and performance together."
The integrated service offers a comprehensive view of European ABS securities and collateral performance information alongside daily independent bond pricing from 27 market makers. Clients have access to closing prices, spreads and average lives for more than 5,100 European ABS securities as well as performance data on more than 1,800 European ABS deals and around 17,000 collateral reports.
This service is meant to equip investors to track pool and loan performance better, including prepayments, defaults, delinquencies and changes in credit quality. The new service also comes hot on the heels of the firm's creation of a daily consensus spread service for credit default swaps referencing asset-backed securities (ASR, 06/11/07).
"The new service facilitates the expansion of CDS of ABS and tracks the underlying of the European CMBS index, ECMBX, being launched in the autumn," said Dave Colling, director of structured finance at Markit. "This provides building blocks for that index, and not only does it provide pertinent information that investors need and deserve, but it is also beneficial to risk and compliance divisions, by offering information that is granular."
Markit's launch of the integrated service coincides with the launch of Markit Quotes, a real-time quote parsing service. "Designed for the buyside, Markit Quotes extracts indicative and live prices from dealer pricing runs and converts them into real-time data, allowing portfolio managers and traders to cut through the thousands of electronic messages they receive daily to gain an immediate view of market levels," the company said in a statement. "The service enables clients to see best bids and offers at a glance, by sorting the vast amount of incoming messages they receive, and makes the data available through the Internet or Microsoft Excel, or via a feed." - JG
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