THE CONCEPT AND BENEFITS

The transactions between parties in the housing finance sector can be broadly classified as those relating to ‘primary residential mortgage market’ and ‘secondary residential mortgage market’. The primary mortgage market activity mainly comprises creation of mortgages as a result of transactions between the borrowers and primary lenders. The primary lenders create mortgages against loans provided by them to the purchasers of houses. The mortgages held as assets, generate cash flows represented by repayments of both principal and interest, on the loans.

The secondary mortgage market mainly involves the conversion of mortgages into tradable financial instruments and the sale of these instruments to prospective investors. The cash flows which come as repayments from the borrowers to the originators, can be transferred to a third party with simultaneous transfer of assets to an intermediary agency (SPV) designated for the purpose of managing the bought over pool of mortgages. These cash flows are passed on to the investors by the SPV. In the process, the mortgages are converted into securities which are tradable financial instruments and sold to investors. The secondary mortgage market is thus made up of securities which are backed by mortgages (MBS) and refers to the transactions between the issuers and investors.

Once the securitised mortgages are sold by the originators viz., the primary lending institutions, they are either de-recognized in the originator’s books of account and presented in a specific manner. All future transactions in the mortgage backed financial instruments then take place in the secondary mortgage market, depending up the depth of the market. The overall liquidity in the capital market and housing finance system would increase with the number of transactions among investors in the secondary mortgage market.

Supportive fiscal measures and the policies of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have established a systemic framework for specialised mortgage finance in the country and the sector has been witnessing steady growth Securitisation not only offers a viable and sustainable market oriented sourcing mechanism with the potential of integrating housing market with the domestic as well as the international capital markets, but also brings in a range of specializations, resulting in efficient and cost effective structures and practices.

• Improves Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) through transfer of risk weighted assets;
• Aids Asset Liabilities Management and helps long term source for deployment in housing sector;
• Enables better spread management, and facilitates improvement of return on assets and return on equity;
• Enables new source of fee based income;