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Significant Risk Transfers have quietly grown into a $1T+ hedged market — now bigger than European CLOs — and they sit at the centre of how banks manage RWAs, capital, and CET1 ratios.
Full analysis: https://open.substack.com/pub/fixedfloating/p/significant-risk-transfer-has-quietly?r=718tew&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Josef Pschorn speaks with Frank Benhamou, Partner & Portfolio Manager and Head of SRT at Cheyne Capital, about the mechanics, pricing, and cycle behaviour of SRTs — from a $1B reference portfolio walk-through to what actually happens when defaults hit and banks can't roll their hedges.
Key takeaways:
- A bank hedging the first 80M of a 1B corporate pool can claim ~75% capital relief once the regulator agrees significant risk has transferred.
- Annual SRT tranche issuance now sits around $30–35B against $350–400B of hedged portfolios, implying over $1T outstanding — larger than the European CLO market.
- SRTs are funded insurance in tranched format — not CDS, not CLOs — with assets remaining on the bank balance sheet and the investor stepping into a true-up / true-down loss mechanism.
- Returns sit at cash + 6–11%, with a triple-B-equivalent average pool rating that has been materially less volatile than CLO equity through recent stress.
- In a downturn, banks restructure the reference pool itself — excluding chemicals, metals, or whichever sectors are under stress — rather than only paying wider spreads.
- Despite the bull case, SRT does not drive loan origination at the deal level. It feeds into origination only at the macro level via freed-up capital.
Frank Benhamou: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankbenhamou
Cheyne Capital: https://www.cheynecapital.com
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Disclaimer: Fixed + Floating is for informational purposes only. Not investment, legal, or tax advice.
Recorded: 01.05.2026
#CreditAnalysis #FixedIncome #CorporateCredit #SignificantRiskTransfer #SRT #BankCapital #SyntheticSecuritisation #BaselIII #PrivateCredit #StructuredCredit
