Sector developments and company hires

NPL guidelines released
The European Commission last week published voluntary guidelines on best execution processes for non-performing loan sales in the secondary market. The guidelines define practices across the seven stages of an NPL transaction – from portfolio selection through to post-closing obligations – and cover unsecured and secured portfolios. Debitos notes that the objective is to accelerate the development and standardisation of processes in the NPL secondary market, in line with the EBA’s strategy to reduce NPLs in the euro area.

Specific recommendations are included on the scope of disclosure across the seven phases, which aim to help secure successful outcomes and improve efficiency and transparency. The guidelines also highlight the utility of NPL transaction platforms, for vendors targeting a broad audience and which operate across multiple jurisdictions.

In other news……

APAC
Mizuho Bank Asia Pacific has appointed Peeyush Pallav as head of real estate asset and structured finance, Asia & Oceania corporate banking, based in Singapore. Pallav was most recently head, structured credit syndicate with Natixis in Hong Kong, and prior to that worked at DBS Bank, Fitch, Standard Chartered and HSBC. In this newly created role, he will contribute to providing creative, content-driven solutions to the bank’s clients and delivering on its strategic objectives.

North America
Fixed-income analytics provider Infima has launched a new advanced predictive analytics platform for agency MBS. The platform will offer advanced analytical capabilities to investors, dealers and other market participants, helping to unlock the US$10trn market. The release of the platform marks an advancement in the science of predicting mortgage borrower behaviour for fixed-income market participants, allowing empowering portfolio managers and traders to make solid investment, trading and risk management decisions in all market conditions. Alongside the launch, Infima has also announced its partnership with front-to-risk market analytics and workflow solutions provider Numerix. Infima hopes the new collaboration will offer its customers access to the most accurate agency MBS prepayment analytics with access to the NxCore Cloud offering.