Capital Relief Trades

Capital relief trades are deals put together by banks to sell on to investors to reduce the bank's regulatory capital requirements.
Such deals can take many forms, but SCI focuses on those where synthetic or securitisation structures are utilised. Those deals can be broken down into the following broad categories (deals can be combinations of these categories): CDS - credit default swaps: in the capital relief trade context, this denotes deals that utilise such instruments to transfer credit risk. CLN - credit-linked note: in the capital relief trade context, this denotes the deal is structured as a note with an embedded credit derivative. Fin gtee - Financial guarantee: a means of structuring a capital relief trade, whereby the investors benefit from a guarantee that all the issuer's obligations will be met. Funded: where a capital relief trade is understood to have been structured using a credit derivative (CDS, CLN, synthetic CDO etc) with the protection seller making an initial payment. Unfunded: where a capital relief trade is understood to have been structured without an initial payment being made under the credit derivative (CDS, CLN, synthetic CDO etc). True sale: a capital relief trade based on a cash securitisation structure rather than a synthetic securitisation structure.