Editor's letter

It's clear that we're far from the end of the problems besetting the credit market, but there are several encouraging items in this month's issue of Credit. The first addresses the section of the financial system that triggered the turmoil in credit initially: the US mortgage market. In our Talking Point section, market participants involved in fresh attempts to establish a covered bond market in the US discuss their belief that this time it could be a success in the prime sector.

On the back page, the Loan Market Association's chairman David Slade discusses how rationality is returning to the loan market. Good-quality new deals are being done, and although he predicts that the second and final year of his tenure at the LMA will be a challenging one, he is working on many positive projects, such as discussions with clearing houses about introducing bond market-style settlement processes.

Our cover feature on page 24 returns to the epicentre of the credit crisis: the complex structured deals responsible for so much of the decline in confidence in our market. While it's far too early to talk about a recovery in that sector, the buy-side accounts we've spoken to recently are confident that a simplified version will appear again, and participants across institutions have advice for investors likely to be involved in the future. It's not all good news but, unlike this time last year, it's not all bad news.

- Matthew Attwood.