Despite a much-beleaguered Asian market since the final quarter of 2002, the last few months have seen the closing of a number of encouraging securitisation deals.

Given Korea's severe consumer credit crisis, the announcement of BNP Paribas' cross border securitisation of credit card receivables originated by Shinhan Card is particularly heartening.

Unusually, the transaction was funded by the issuance of a Ö300m bond. Whereas US dollar issuances have been the norm, this was the first time such euro-denominated securities have been issued to finance a Korean cross border asset backed securitisation (ABS). As there is no Korean won/euro swap market as yet, the swap provider conducted two back-to-back transactions - Korean won/US dollar then US dollar /euro - in order to perform its obligations.

In addition, a Korean trust and a Korean ABS Act special purpose vehicle (SPV) were used in the transaction and the usual offshore - typically Cayman Islands - SPV was dispensed with.

Freshfields acted as arranger for BNP Paribas, with Patrick Lines its team leader. Lines said: "The use of an offshore SPV was not considered necessary in this transaction since the main reason for having one is to facilitate the transfer of security granted by the Korean SPV. This makes the documentation much simpler and therefore reduces the transaction costs for the client and allows quicker execution."

In line with the development of Korea's ABS market, Lines has hopes that further unwrapped transactions will follow.

In Hong Kong, HSBC wrapped up another groundbreaking securitisation. Sidley Austin Brown & Wood acted as arranger for HSBC in the (HK$3bn) synthetic securitisation backed by taxi and public light bus loans.

The deal represents the first synthetic securitisation of this asset class and the first balance sheet securitisation to feature a portfolio of non-mortgage consumer and SME obligators in Asia.