The so-called third party (or non-bank sponsored) portion of the asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) market in Canada largely collapsed in August 2007. Market participants and other stakeholders stood still and worked together from August 2007 through January 2009 to achieve an unprecedented consensual restructuring of the securities.
Rise of third-party ABCP
The ABCP market in Canada had for many years funded the purchase of traditional securitised assets by bank-sponsored conduits. Late in the nineties, third party (or non-bank sponsored) conduits also began to appear.
One feature of Canadian ABCP that has got much attention is so-called general market-disruption liquidity support. Unlike other ABCP markets where global-style liquidity is prevalent, liquidity backstop facilities funding the mismatch between ABCP maturities and the maturities of the underlying securitised assets in Canada have traditionally taken the form of general market-disruption liquidity, where the condition precedent to draw is a market-wide liquidity event unconnected to...