We then argue that the development of these securitization markets has also permitted a
greater transparency in the evaluation of the credit quality of banks’ portfolios. First, through
securitization, portions of the banks’ loan portfolios are priced by the market. Second, while
these markets become more liquid, the prices of the securitization bonds quoted in the
secondary markets can provide more precise indications of the evolving credit quality of the
underlying portfolio. The “jumbo” or benchmark issues of European mortgage covered bonds
are good candidates for such an analysis, given the size and liquidity of their secondary
market. There are several ways to monitor the dynamics of these markets. In this paper, we
evaluate the dynamics of the asset swap spreads as we believe that this is an appropriate tool
to assess their credit risk