Synthetic, but how much risk transfer?

Banks use synthetic risk transfers (SRTs) to offload potential losses in their loan portfolios to non-bank investors while retaining the loans on their balance sheets. We investigate this trillion-euro market using transaction-level data from the euro area, the largest SRT market, and highlight three channels of potential risks to financial stability. First, we show that banks synthetically transfer loans that are capital-expensive relative to their riskiness. To establish causality, we exploit a regulation that causes a jump in the risk weights of loans without affecting their riskiness. As banks redeploy the freed capital, their loan portfolios become riskier relative to their capitalization. Second, after entering an SRT, banks reduce their monitoring efforts compared to other banks lending to the same firm. The reduction in monitoring is greater the larger the share of their firm exposure that banks synthetically transfer. Third, banks and non-bank investors are interconnected. Banks are more likely to sell SRTs to investors with whom they already have credit relationship.