abs markets. abs are an important means to achieve our policy objectives in a prudent manner, which could be achieved either by ensuring the applicable haircuts or by outright purchases in this market. our decision to intensify the preparations could help to catalyse new securitisation activity. but for a virtuous circle to take hold, the regulatory and market barriers that are preventing the revitalisation of european abs markets need to come down in tandem. much work is already on - going to improve the environment for abs issuance. what i have tried to outline today is several practical steps that can be taken to take this work forward. i believe that a holistic and coordinated approach among eu policy - makers, as well as greater standardisation and more methodological transparency by rating agencies, could help encourage the revival of the abs market that we all want to see. thank you for your attention. bis central bankers ’ speeches

issuance is low, trading is thin in some segments, the size of the investor base has not recovered and various conservative regulations are under discussion. what can be done to revitalise securitisation markets in this context? proposals to unblock european abs markets much has already been written on this topic and i will not attempt to repeat all the arguments in the limited time we have today. i would like instead to offer three proposals that i see as important to keep moving the debate forward. these relate to the regulatory treatment of abs, transparency and standardisation requirements and the treatment of abs by credit rating agencies. the proposals should be seen as complementary to the suggestions made elsewhere, including the recent joint discussion paper from the ecb and the bank of england. regulatory treatment my first proposal to revive eu abs markets is to find a more holistic approach to their regulatory treatment. there has been a lot of discussion about various individual issues related to abs : for example, excessive securitisation capital charges, transparency and risk retention improvements, higher credit enhancement requirements, as well as the current liquidity rule proposals, which i see as overly constraining. and regulators have responded by making efforts to overhaul the securitisation capital framework, categorise abs in liquidity categories, finalise securitisation capital requirements for insurers, and reform transparency and disclosure requirements for these instruments. in my view, however, this focus on discrete issues is causing us to miss their continuous dimension. there is still a sense that the regulatory agenda is proceeding in an uncoordinated manner. one example concerns “ high quality ” treatment across regulations. the bcbs ’ efforts to finalise the securitisation capital framework before end - 2014 will not consider “ high quality ” preferential treatment. in a few weeks, however, the european commission must identify which abs are “ high quality and liquid ” in the liquidity coverage ratio. another example concerns transparency requirements across asset classes. substantial efforts are underway to further improve the transparency and disclosure requirements of abs in a pan - eu manner, building on the improvements to abs transparency brought in by the ecb ’ s abs loan - level data templates. yet, while so much effort is being devoted to improving transparency over an asset class where substantial progress has already been made, covered bonds continue to have no common transparency framework and indeed no bis central bankers ’ speeches common supervisory framework. nonetheless, they benefit from preferential risk weights in the capital requirements regulation