Asset-backed commercial paper program

Asset-backed commercial paper program (ABCP program, ABCP Conduit or Conduit) is set up as a program that issues short-term liabilities, commercial papers called asset-backed commercial papers (ABCPs), to finance medium- to long-term assets. In terms of terminology, ABCP usually refers to asset-backed commercial paper, while ABCP conduit (or conduit) the program. The maturities of ABCP range up to 270 days but average about 30 days. Like banks, ABCP programs provide liquidity and maturity transformation services. Because of this structure, ABCP conduits are considered to be part of the Shadow banking system. A common and prominent feature of many ABCP programs is that they were created by banks to fund bank assets in an off-balance sheet way, possibly to avoid regulatory capital requirements. Due to this character, ABCP is blamed to be one of the reasons of the 2008–09 global financial crises.

ABCP programs first appeared in the mid-1980s. Initially, ABCP conduits were primarily sponsored by major commercial banks as a means of providing trade receivable financing to their corporate customers. Over the past decade, ABCP programs have grown to serve a wide variety of needs such as: asset-based financing for companies that cannot access the commercial paper market, warehousing assets prior to security issuance, investing in rated securities for arbitrage profit, providing leverage to mutual funds, and off-balance sheet funding of bank assets.

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