"Once in ABS, Always in ABS. Welcome!"

This phrase is my personal highlight for the True Sale International GmbH Kongress 2023 in Berlin. I just joined the industry and jumped straight into a market event. And I never felt such a strong sense of community.

As a newbie in the industry and the market, I thought the best way to start learning would be to connect with all the players and parties, and ideally in person. I often used a version of "I'm new in the industry and hence why I was hoping you could help me further understand your role as a [issuer, arranger, investor, servicer, etc.]" and everybody was happy to connect and share with me more of their view of the industry, their role in it and their time for a follow-up.

The second moment when it felt like such a strong community, was on all panels I attended. Many different perspectives were shared from all players involved and the clear guiding principle was always a focus on how the work done by the industry has a real impact. I experienced the strong focus shared around the current positive outlook, but also on the many opportunities to do even better. I saw players praise the regulators for the work done too, not see them only as "the bad guy" ruining the fun.

My final thoughts on this first experience go to such great discussions around technology and data. The hunger for progress and innovation, the excitement on the possibilities of implementing AI and cutting edge data practices/technology, and the interesting thoughts on how innovation can produce a huge leap in efficiencies and so on, but mostly on keeping an eye on how things can simply change tomorrow.

Short note to thank Bastian Menges who made me feel very welcomed with the titled phrase. I'm looking forward to revolutionizing what can be done with data in structured finance, for all players.

If this was an nice read, maybe I’ll give it another try again soon, let me know!