The American Securitization Forum (ASF) and Standard & Poor's (S&P) Fixed Income Risk Management Services (FIRMS), an analytics and research unit separate from S&P's ratings business, have developed new standardized universal code for identifying information about individual loans that are securitized in the mortgage- and asset-backed securities markets.
The new global ASF Loan Identification Number Code (ASF LINC) is a 16-digit identification code that captures underlying loan type, origination date and country of origin, in addition to randomized alphanumeric data, to create a unique ID for a wide range of loans that may be pooled and sold into the capital markets.
‘A major goal of ASF Project RESTART is to improve information flows to investors via enhanced disclosure and reporting," says Tom Deutsch, deputy executive director of the ASF. "The global ASF LINC will be instrumental in meeting this goal, as it offers investors – for the first time – the ability to follow a loan throughout its life.’
The ASF LINC has been developed in a format that can be easily integrated into existing computerized analytics and risk modeling programs used by investors, governments and regulators to evaluate mortgage- and asset-backed portfolios, the ASF and S&P say.
For each loan, the ASF LINC captures the underlying loan type, the date of origination and the country of origination.
The global ASF LINC is linked to the CUSIP and/or ISIN number of the securitized product, allowing investors to track the loan throughout its life span and provide a chain of accountability between loan originators and investors.
Assigned at no cost to issuers, the ASF LINC is stored in a central loan data repository administered by S&P FIRMS. The ASF LINC is not designed or intended to replace the primary servicer's loan number, but rather to provide users with a means to track and monitor a loan throughout its life after the loan has been securitized, the companies say.
SOURCE: American Securitization Forum