More and more emerging countries are developing asset-backed securities markets as a way to improve on inefficient bank financial intermediation. The aim is to stimulate domestic investment, as well as to attract international investors that have long bought emerging-market issues backed by hard-currency receivables. With a little help from the IFC, mortgage securitization schemes are now running in Argentina and South Africa. The IFC has also helped develop more complex lease securitizations in Korea and Turkey. If securitization markets are to grow as big as those in Europe and the US, radical changes are needed in bankruptcy laws, regulation and standards of disclosure. James Smalhout reports
August 01, 2000