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Given that it bought Advantage Home Loans as long ago as December 2005, Morgan Stanley has taken its time to launch its first non-conforming RMBS transaction, ResLoc UK 2007-1. But the deal is not an Advantage deal; just 9.87% of the loans in the deal are actually originated by the lender. Morgan Stanley has been busy buying whole loan portfolios from other non-conforming lenders to ramp up this deal and the lion’s share of the collateral is actually originated by GMAC-RFC (79.9%). This will certainly offer investors comfort, given GMAC’s longevity in the sector. However, given the intense scrutiny that sub-prime lending has been under of late, the low, 6.1-month seasoning of the portfolio together with its 82.6% loan-to-value ratio might give some pause for thought. The US bank hired mortgage market veteran Rob Collins from Abbey last year to front its residential mortgage securitization business.

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Head of prime brokerage Hannah Goodwin talks about expansion of the bank’s services to Singapore.

The opening up of the Chinese FX market has continued with the unveiling of a new trading platform by the China Foreign Exchange Trade System. The platform, which uses Reuters’ electronic trading technology, initially went live on March 12 for currencies other than the yuan before being expanded to allow CFETS member banks to trade the yuan against five other currencies in early April.

Global foreign exchange volume continues to soar, with a study surveying the buy-side showing corporates are lagging behind banks, fund managers and hedge funds regarding industry volume.

Only one commercial-property backed securitization deal has so far been done in Poland, so what are the prospects for a wider mortgage-backed securitization market taking off? James Featherstone reports.

The range of structured credit products on offer to investors has grown as they seek to increase returns in a low-yield environment. The next stage, led by CPDOs, is to create more spread-based, rated products that incorporate default and market risk.

Dominion Bond Rating Service is now an eligible External Credit Assessment Institution with 11 EU countries. It is part of a long drive by the Canadian-headquartered rating agency to break into the industry oligopoly.

"Oh shit!"

Talk in the media and analysts’ reports about banking in central and eastern Europe tends to revolve around consolidation – the inevitable acquisition of the region’s most promising targets by foreign firms eager to increase their investment in rapidly growing economies. Smaller firms, the logic goes, will have to sell up or face becoming dwarfed. The results of this year’s poll, however, provide an intriguing counterpoint.

As demand for financial services accelerates in Europe’s fastest-growing economies, several firms based in the Baltic republics have quietly been building impressive investment banking operations that now compete with larger Scandinavian rivals. This success story might have an unhappy ending, however: analysts have been sounding the alarm amid fears that Latvia might be about to devalue its currency. Lawrence White reports from Riga and Tallinn.