S&P Unveils Euro MBS/ABS Pricing Service

Standard & Poor's has announced the introduction of what it says is the first service using cash flow analysis and modeling to evaluate prices of European structured finance securities.The S&P Evaluated Pricing Service provides fund managers and securities firms with daily and intraday evaluations of the prices of securities -- initially asset- and mortgage-backed bonds -- based on collateral and cash flows, S&P said. "The rapid growth in securitization issuance in Europe in recent years has not been matched by the development of a liquid secondary market, and this has raised concerns about the transparency, reliability, and consistency of valuing many structured bonds," said Peter Jones, director of European securities evaluations at S&P. "Our new service provides an independent, rigorous, and credible answer for daily valuation and mark-to-market problems within this important but thinly traded market." S&P can be found online at http://www.standardandpoors.com.