The TSI Congress is nearing and it comes at an interesting time. The European Parliament, the Council and the Commission are scheduled to sit down for the third round of talks on the securitization framework on 29 September. Two days later, the industry that has been waiting on this development will meet at the TSI Congress in Berlin. For sure, everyone in the room will have their own view on what the reform should say. Far fewer will have a concrete idea of what they will have to do differently in operations as a result of the reform.
This year once again, we are sponsoring the anniversary TSI Congress, and our CEO András Vajda joins the SRT Investor Roundtable on day one alongside our board member Steve Gandy, Joanna Kosek of Christofferson Robb & Company and Som-lok Leung of IACPM, moderated by Dr. Patrick Scholl of Mayer Brown. The session is titled “Market Trends, Performance & Outlook” and here is why we think the discussion will be interesting and why the word ‘performance’ matters more than ever.
The SRT market grew faster than the technology behind it
Significant risk transfer is not a specialist trade anymore. According to the IACPM Global SRT Bank Survey, banks issued SRT on 378 billion euros of loans in 2025, 35 percent more than the year before. By the end of 2025, SRT protected 905 billion euros of bank loans, across more than 800 transactions from 62 banks since 2016. The BIS counts around eight new bank issuers entering the market every year. IACPM also found that investor demand clearly exceeded supply in 2025, which pushed spreads down
What has not scaled at the same rate is the supporting technology. We know from experience that a large share of the issued transactions still run on spreadsheets with manual processes. and manual processes. This was doable when banks did one deal every one or two years with a single investor. It is very different when banks run complex programs, when tranches are placed with a broader investor base, and when the reference portfolio replenishes month after month for years.
In our experience, new issuers feel the lack of scalability the most. The deal team gets the structure agreed and the capital relief approved, and then the transaction closes and they find out that the real commitment is only starting.
Complexity is the real market trend
More issuers, more investors, more programs and more portfolios that replenish every month. Each of these adds work after closing, and together they make complexity the trend that matters most for the people running these deals.
At the same time, operations are under more scrutiny than ever, from two directions. Regulators are watching the market closely. The Basel Committee and the BIS both published reports on SRT this year, looking at how the market has grown and where the risks sit. Investors are asking more questions too. With demand ahead of supply and spreads tighter, they want reliable data on every deal they hold, delivered on time and in the same format every month.
Spreadsheets were never built for this level of scrutiny. They can hold the numbers, but they cannot show who changed what and when, apply the same checks every month without fail, or give a supervisor or an investor a clear audit trail.
Why we focus on performance in this panel
Performance in an SRT context can mean two things at once.
The first is credit performance. The SRT market has matured in a benign part of the cycle. Losses have been low and protection has kept rolling. Regulators have raised concerns, including what happens if investors stop offering protection in a downturn, but so far those concerns have stayed theoretical.
The second is operational performance. It covers whether the waterfall was calculated correctly whether the eligibility and replenishment tests were applied the way the documentation dictates, whether the investor report arrived on time and in the same shape as last month, and whether the bank can evidence all of this to a supervisor next year.
These two are very closely connected. Private credit funds, insurers and pension funds are pricing bank loan risk using data the bank produces for its own purposes. When that reporting is done by hand, it can arrive late and differ from month to month. That makes it harder for everyone to see how these portfolios really behave. This is why credit performance and operational performance are the same conversation, and why it is in our best interest to look at them together.
The new reform will affect operations before it affects strategy
We believe the review will increase the importance of reporting, including for private deals, and that it will call for a clearer line between what counts as public and what counts as private. In a month we will know more about the outcome of the third round of discussions, and it will certainly shape the conversation between the panelists. What we are already sure about is that the reform will create work in operations, whatever exactly changes in the final text.
When banks still run their deals in spreadsheets, every change in the rules turns into a project for the same people who close the transactions. When banks run their transactions on a platform, it is the vendor’s job to make sure the tools, and the settings meet the new requirements. That difference does not show up in a sales pitch. It shows up a year later, in how many deals a team can take on.
In conversation with the panelist, András Vajda
The panel is called Market Trends, Performance and Outlook. What does performance mean to you?
András Vajda: “Ask ten people and eight will talk about losses on the reference portfolio. That is the part nobody can control. The part you can control is whether the deal is administered properly for the years to come. We see the same pattern in every institution we work with. Enormous care goes into structuring and pricing, and then the ongoing operations sit in a spreadsheet that one person maintains.”
What market trend do you expect to talk about on the panel?
András Vajda: “Complexity. More issuers, more investors, more programs. And operations are under increasing scrutiny from both regulators and investors. At that level of scrutiny, spreadsheets are simply not sufficient anymore.”
The reform is still in trilogue. What should issuers be doing while they wait for the news?
András Vajda: “Don’t be in waiting mode. The parts under negotiation are thresholds and definitions. The underlying obligation, that you can produce accurate, timely, auditable reporting on every transaction you have outstanding, is not up for debate. Institutions that don’t wait, but get strategic about their operations will have a massive advantage.”
What should someone stop and talk to you about in Berlin?
András Vajda: “If you are running synthetic and true sale on separate systems, or running either of them on Excel, that is the conversation to have. Spreadsheets don’t scale – but we put institutions live on one platform in three months, across synthetic SRT, true sale and covered bonds. Let’s figure out what is impossible in your setup and we will find the solution that works for your institution. We are always up for a good challenge.”
Where to find us at the TSI Congress?
SRT Investor Roundtable: Market Trends, Performance & Outlook
Congress day one, Thursday 1 October 2026, 14:30 to 15:30
Foyer Alexanderplatz DomLounge, 7th floor
Moderation: Dr. Patrick Scholl, Mayer Brown
Participants: Joanna Kosek (Christofferson Robb & Company), Som-lok Leung (IACPM), András Vajda (iconicchain), Steve Gandy
iconicchain is a sponsor of the 2026 TSI Congress. We are around for both days, including the networking reception on Thursday evening. If you want to book time in advance, contact us here.