ABSTRACT
Royal Bank of Scotland’ biggest rivals on the European banking scene were the German mortgage banks. Germany's banks alone could have provided the markets with enough debt, and as the leading lending force in Europe, its depth, breadth and tight margins did not leave much room for new lending techniques. The property lending side became Aareal Bank, a bank with an around EUR27 billion loan book across Europe, including its early lending in Central Europe. The Resolution Trust Corporation’s backing gave new credibility to commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS), which until then only had a track record of a few busted deals in the 1980s. It was a resurrection that soon attracted the interest of the United States investment banks. While the early trophy securitisations helped investment banks stay at the top of the all-important CMBS league tables, they helped to create a market rather than generating high profit margins for the banks.
