Following its acquisition of deal reporting service ABSReports at the beginning of the year (Reference Data Review, January 2007), Markit, provider of data, portfolio valuations and OTC derivatives trade processing, has launched what it says is the first integrated pricing and performance monitoring service for the European asset-backed securities (ABS) market in a move it says will increase levels of efficiency and market transparency.
The new platform, which is touted by Markit as providing investors and dealers with a “truly integrated” solution, enables them to monitor both price and performance for European ABSs. It combines the ABSReports service with Markit’s existing ABS pricing service.
Kevin Gould, executive vice president and head of data products and analytics at Markit, says: “It is our expectation that the service will prove to be a valuable monitoring tool for dealers and investors, and will bring transparency and efficiency to the European ABS marketplace by combining price and collateral information on a single screen.”
The provider, which says it has consulted with partners, existing end users (of the older standalone solutions) and prospective users while developing the new platform, is “confident” that it meets end users’ needs and expectations.
Viewable either via a secure web connection or through dedicated downloads, the new offering covers transactions including ABSs, residential mortgage-backed securities, commercial mortgage-backed securities and collateralised debt obligations. “Via one single site, the user is now able to view multi-contributed, mark-to-market pricing on securities, and also monitor the performance of bonds and the collateral backing these deals,” a Markit spokesperson told Reference Data Review.
The vendor says it is in the process of migrating existing users of its European ABS pricing and ABS Reports to the new platform, and is also actively marketing the integrated service to prospects.
The integrated service offers market participants a view of European ABS securities and collateral performance information alongside daily independent bond pricing gathered from 27 market makers, who contribute to Markit’s European ABS pricing service. Consensus pricing is published on more than 5100 European ABS securities after the data has been run against cleaning algorithms in order to remove outliers.
Performance data is captured from multiple sources and displayed in standardised templates per asset class, and access to the original offering circulars and investor reports is also included. Bond and collateral performance data on more than 1800 European ABS deals and 17,000 collateral reports is offered.
“Overall Markit is providing a platform which enables a client to work more efficiently and also provides a great deal of information in order to do in-depth analysis on their positions and the market as a whole,” the spokesperson adds.
The enhanced dataset should allow investors to track pool and loan performance including prepayments, defaults, delinquencies and changes in credit quality. Markit adds that pricing and performance coverage is “continually” being expanded and will also grow in line with new issuance in the market. In terms of costs to deploy and use the system, Markit declines to specify exact tariffs and billing.
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