Capital Markets

Local Currency Bond Markets, Covered Bonds, Mortgage-backed Securities

My key professional expertise in capital markets is in covered (mortgage) bonds and mortgage-backed securities (MBS).

In the 1990s, I worked closely with the German Mortgage Bank Association, the guardian of the Pfandbrief, as a legal-regulatory policy advisor – especially on EU regulatory affairs. On staff of the Capital Markets Development Department of World Bank around 2000 I was responsible for mortgage capital market development and advised inter alia Eastern European countries, Brazil and the Philippines. In 2002 I performed a critical assessment of the U.S. agency / MBS public guarantee system centered on the ‘government-sponsored enterprises’ Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In 2006 I became a member of the EU Mortgage Funding Expert Group which was tasked with the development of mortgage-related securities markets at a time when mortgage and related ‘agency’ bond markets were about to eclipse government bond markets in the U.S..

Over the years, I have been responsible for many legal-regulatory analyses, law-making exercises and feasibility studies in emerging capital markets that included the development of Turkish (2004), Uruguayan (2008), Armenian (2015) and Georgian (2019) covered bond legislation. I designed a comprehensive covered bond training course for EBRD in 2012. I have assisted Armenia and Georgia in identifying and structuring multi-issuer solutions for covered bond issuance.

During the GFC, which originated partly in excessive mortgage capital market development, I wrote the first critical assessment of the German covered bond system following the crisis of 2008 and became involved in the the U.S. covered bond law debate ca 2010 after the collapse of the mortgage-backed securities markets there.

Mortgage capital markets has been through these decades a particularly embattled area of mortgage finance. My approach has always been to analyze and design instruments and institutions strictly on the basis of their merits in terms of generating value for investors, raising long-term funding and managing risk for issuers / mortgage lenders as well as minimizing contingent liabilities for taxpayers.

Selected presentations local currency bonds / covered bonds / MBS

“Institutional Detail Swiss Centralized Refinancing Companies”, Paper prepared under the project with the National Bank of Georgia / Asian Development Bank with the support of Pfandbriefbank schweizerischer Hypothekarkreditinstitute, February 2019.

“Centralized Mortgage Refinancing and Local Currency Bond Funding – Governance Case Studies from Developed and Developing Markets”, Workshop held at the National Bank of Georgia, April 2019

“Mortgage Capital Market and Access to Credit Instruments with special focus on Covered Bonds and Contract Savings for Housing“, Workshop held at the National Bank of Georgia, June 2018