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Another player arrived at the 2002 credit card table last Friday when UK consumer finance company HFC Bank set up the second new master trust of the year.
In April Capital One Bank made its first public entry into the European ABS market with Sherwood Castle via sole bookrunner Barclays Capital. Now Barclays and Credit Suisse First Boston have brought another master trust player using a structure similar to that of regular issuer MBNA and its 15 CARDS transactions.
HFC was well known in the 1990s for its Prospect series of securitisations, backed by unsecured consumer loans. And in November 1997 it brought the first credit card master trust based solely in the UK with Opus Master Receivables Trust. But no further credit card transactions followed.
After the FSA published a definitive policy on the securitisation of revolving debt in 1998, simpler structures became possible in the style of US master trusts. For its return to the market HFC decided to follow the likes of MBNA, offering investors a familiar structure and allowing them to concentrate on...