‘This is a carefully researched and valuable study of one of the major strategic issues in banking: the relative role of banks and the capital market in meeting the financing requirements of the corporate sector. Feeney brings to the study both a solid academic framework and the insights of a practitioner.' - Professor David T. Llewellyn, Loughborough University of Technology The increasing trend towards the securitization of retail and wholesale financial assets is examined in depth with various chapters devoted to the characteristics and significance of the different securitized assets and securitization techniques. Against this backdrop, the author offers an insightful scenario for the future of commercial and investment banking over the next 20 years and provides a new mindset within which senior bankers can make their strategic banking decisions for the 21st century. This book thus develops and provides evidence for a completely new theory of financial system development: the 'systemic theory'. It is a theory of how the financial system develops, not on a singular line of evolution towards greater efficiency as generally accepted, but through the parallel development and cooperation of its various subsystems. This type of development can increase both efficiencies and inefficiencies in the financial system.