John Costa

I have been active in the financial markets for the past three decades and my efforts have spanned investment banking (from an asset backed securities standpoint), securities issuance, specialty finance company management, credit card marketing and servicing and bank consulting. Having grown up during the development of the ABS market place, and in particular during the vast expansion of the Asset Backed Commercial Paper market (ABCP), I was able to participate in many innovative financial markets.

The overriding theme over my career has been innovation both from the standpoint of problem solving to new concept execution. In the ABCP arena, for example, I pioneered a novel issuance vehicle which allowed a non-bank institution to become an investor in over $1billion of credit card securities. More recently, my focus has been on designing capital market strucutures to assist with the sale of illiquid or impaired assets by focusing on strategies to minimizie the "bid - ask" spread.

Although I have dealt with most consumer asset classes (credit card, mortgage, auto) my operational experience has mostly been based on credit cards and some exotic asset categories (timeshare loans, consumer land loans). I have served on the credit committee of specialty finance businesses and was an outside director for a publicly held specialty finance company operating in the land and timeshare lending arena.

In the past year I have had two opinion pieces published in the American Banker (one on innovation and securitization and one on the use of shared appreciation mortgages to alleviate the current housing dilemma) and have participated in numerous industry conferences.