Bankers welcome Aussie RMBS rescue plan, but questions remain

The Australian government last Friday embarked on a plan to buy A$4bn ($3.23bn) of new mortgage-backed bonds in a bailout that mirrors the troubled asset relief programme being put forward in the US. The plan differs from its US counterpart in many respects: it is small, it is targeted at a single asset class and it is reasonably simple. But is has the same motivation – to prop up the country’s housing market by injecting liquidity into funding markets.