ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the practice of securitisation in finance today. Securitisation is a vital part of the contemporary financial system, having been the central channel through which the so-called originate to distribute (OTD) model of banking has become institutionalised. It examines the origins of securitisation as a pillar of contemporary finance. The chapter focuses on the nature of securitisation in its current form and it explores the problematic aspects of securitisation process as seen from a legal point of view. Cases of financial fraud mushroomed as a result of investigators discovering all sorts of ingenious manners in which the financial elite defrauded its clients before the advent of the credit crunch. It is important to remember that financial innovation, securitisation and shadow banking are not only economic or financial processes. Crucially, these are legal mechanisms that tend to thrive in the grey area of the 'in-between' that appears to be readily available in the global financial system.
