S&P Valuation and Risk Strategies, an independent and analytically separate business unit within Standard & Poor's that provides users with market intelligence and analytic insight for risk-driven investment analysis and Fiserv, a provider of financial services technology solutions, have partnered to further industry implementation of the American Securitization Forum's (ASF) Loan Identification Number Code (LINC) initiative.
Fiserv said that ASF LINC is a unique ID for a wide range of assets that may be pooled and sold in the capital markets. The identification code captures the loan type, origination date, country of origin and randomized alphanumeric data, and it is stored in a central loan data repository administered by S&P Valuation and Risk Strategies.
The ASF LINC is intended to provide investors, lenders and financial institutions a means to track a loan’s performance throughout its life after securitization.
Fiserv will integrate ASF LINC in its loan servicing platform. In collaboration with S&P, Fiserv will provide increased disclosure and transparency to the mortgage and asset-backed securities marketplace by providing this industry-wide loan identification code.
Jonathan Reeve, managing director for S&P Valuation and Risk Strategies, said: “We believe a widely adopted loan identification system will help bring greater transparency to global credit markets and are fully committed to supporting the ASF LINC initiative. Fiserv’s incoporation of this data into its loan servicing platform represents a significant and historic step in this direction. We hope other technology providers will follow Fiserv’s lead and incorporate ASF LINC too.”
Norwood Sloan, vice president for loan servicing mortgage products at Fiserv, said: “The Loan Servicing Platform from Fiserv delivers single-platform loan servicing for all retail loans and is an example of the Fiserv core competency in Processing Services. By partnering with S&P, Fiserv will be able to provide additional market intelligence so that our clients can make more-informed investment decisions which can help make financial services safer and more cost-effective.”