National Committee Members

Chair

Sarah is a Partner with PwC Australia.

Sarah has spent over 20 years in the banking and finance industry, the majority of this specialising in securitisation. 

She is Chair of the Australian Securitisation Forum and a member of the Regulatory & Prudential Subcommittee. She is a keen supporter of the Women In Securitisation networking forum.

Sarah holds a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Sydney, a Masters of Economics from Macquarie University, is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and is a Chartered Accountant. 

Sarah can be contacted at sarah.hofman@pwc.com.

Deputy Chair

Belinda Smith is Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Eticore, a company she founded in 2016 to realise her passion for embracing diversity, inclusion, and the entrepreneurial spirit.

She has held a variety of senior roles within debt capital markets in Australia, the UK and Japan. Belinda was most recently General Manager, Management Services at Perpetual. Prior to joining Perpetual in 2014, Belinda was a Director at Resimac, managing acquisitions and working with the Capital Markets team to secure funding via warehouses, term securitisations, and direct investments. From 2010 to 2014, Belinda was also a Director at Australia Ratings. 

Belinda was a Senior Director at Standard & Poor's for nine years and managed a team of credit analysts across the Asia Pacific region, assigning credit ratings to structured debt products, including RMBS, ABS, CMBS, ABCP, CDOs and infrastructure debt. 

Belinda’s infrastructure experience expanded during her time with Essential Energy, where she focused on the sale of its retail electricity business to Origin Energy, and in the early ‘90s Belinda worked as a currency options analyst at Macquarie Bank. Throughout her career, Belinda has also undertaken a variety of roles working on bespoke securitisation projects for the ASF, fund managers, issuers and insurance companies.

Belinda is Deputy Chair of the Australian Securitisation Forum, Chair of the Women in Securitisation Subcommittee, and has been a member of the Industry & Markets Subcommittee for over 12 years. 

Belinda can be contacted at belinda.smith@eticore.com.au.

Treasurer

Heather has over 18 years’ experience in the US, UK and Australian retail banking market and has specialised in securitisation since 2003. She was a key member of the Deloitte New York Securitisation Services Team through the 2007-2010 GFC working with clients to access government support, restructure transactions and assess the impact of the crisis. 

Heather represents Asia-Pacific in Deloitte’s market-leading Global Securitisation Team, with strong links to global experts across the world and she leads Deloitte’s Securitisation Advisory offerings nationally. She is an audit partner and works closely with many of Australia’s largest lenders challenging end-to-end controls and processes across the credit lifecycle as well as working on many of the Australian market’s domestic and international issuances, for both audit and non-audit clients across asset classes. Heather also regularly leads due diligence engagements on portfolio acquisitions and M&A engagements.  She audits both ADIs and non-bank lenders, as well as one of Australia’s largest aggregators.

Heather is a contributing author and presenter of the annual Deloitte Mortgage Report and is a judge for The Advisor Magazine’s Broker of the Year Awards. 

Heather has been Treasurer of the Australian Securitisation Forum since 2017. She also chairs both the internal Audit & Risk Subcommittee and the Accounting and Tax Subcommittee, and has recently led the ASF’s discussions with the Australian Accounting Standards Board regarding financial reporting requirements for securitisation SPVs. Additionally, she has been a member of the Education Subcommittee since 2011 and leads all the accounting and tax concepts for the ASF’s educational offerings. 

Heather can be contacted at hebaister@deloitte.com.au.

Andrew is a Partner at Clayton Utz and has been a lawyer for over 29 years, with more than 25 years' experience in the securitisation industry, acting across a range of asset and security classes (RMBS, CMBS, insurance linked notes, trade receivables, non-conforming loans, reverse mortgages, auto and equipment loans and leases and government leases) and for a range of participants (including sponsors, arrangers, lenders, investors, government bodies, facility providers and trustees in both domestic and cross-border transactions). 

Andrew has been  listed in Chambers Asia-Pacific for securitisation as a leading individual (band 1) for over 10 years, and has previously been named Best Lawyers Lawyer of the Year, a leading lawyer by IFLR 1000 and a leading lawyer by Asia Pacific Legal 500.

Andrew is Chair of the Regulatory & Prudential Subcommittee.  

Andrew can be contacted at ajinks@claytonutz.com. 

Bianca is currently the Group Treasurer at flexigroup. flexigroup provides a diverse range of finance solutions to consumers and business, including Buy Now Pay Later products, credit cards and consumer and business leasing. In this role, Bianca is responsible for the group’s capital and liquidity management and funding of the group’s receivables portfolios spanning Australia, New Zealand and Ireland.

Bianca has extensive experience in securitisation across a range of asset classes and geographies. Prior to joining flexigroup in 2017, she spent over 10 years as a lawyer advising issuers, financiers and other participants in connection with domestic and offshore securitisation, covered bond and debt capital markets transactions in senior roles at both Allen & Overy and Clayton Utz. 

Bianca is an active contributor to the Australian and New Zealand securitisation markets with many long-standing connections across the industry. She is currently a member of the ASF’s Industry and Markets Subcommittee, the Women in Securitisation Subcommittee and the New Zealand Market Subcommittee and has previously been a presenter of the ASF’s education programmes. 

Bianca holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance and Accounting) and a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) from Macquarie University together with a Master of Laws from the University of New South Wales. 
 
Bianca can be contacted at bianca.spata@flexigroup.com.au.

Matthew is the Group Treasurer of SG Fleet Group, a leading provider of motor vehicle leasing, fleet management and salary packaging services, with businesses in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

Matthew has 24 years of corporate and bank treasury experience, which comprised 7 years in leadership roles in the treasury team of Pepper Group, including as Australian Treasurer, and 17 years at Macquarie Group, including as Treasurer of the Banking & Securitisation Division.

Prior to that Matthew worked for 10 years in the Banking & Financial Services practice of Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) in Sydney and London, qualifying as a Chartered Account in 1989.

Matthew is co-Chair of the Industry & Markets Subcommittee and has been an active participant on a number of other ASF subcommittees over the past decade.  He has been a long term participant in the securitisation industry and is a strong advocate for the non-bank sector.

Matthew can be contacted at mohare@sgfleet.com.

Peter is a senior director in Westpac’s Structured Finance team where he has responsibility for origination, structuring, execution and management of structured funding solutions for Westpac’s corporate customers, including Term ABS/RMBS arranging and distribution, and warehousing financing for various NBFIs. Peter’s role also extends to full client relationship management for a portfolio of NBFIs.   

During  23 years of experience in banking, Peter has  been involved in many innovative financings including Westpac’s first RMBS (WST 97-1); Bluestone’s Sapphire programme where the first B-rated note, first Interest Only security and first super-senior AAA-rated debt was issued (also CFO Structured Finance Deal of the Year (2002)), the Ozcar / government backed dealer finance bail-out, and arranger for Latitude Financials’ inaugural Personal Loans ABS.  Peter’s experience also includes credit research, having established Westpac’s (at the time award winning) DCM credit research franchise. 

In 2013, Peter arranged the second social benefit bond in Australia for The Benevolent Society, using securitisation techniques to create bonds tied to achievement of reduced foster care placements for vulnerable children in NSW.  In 2017 he arranged a bond for Churches of Christ in Queensland, targeting youth homelessness. Peter holds a BEc(Hons) from Sydney University.

Peter is Chair of the New Zealand Market Subcommittee, and has also contributed to the the Education Subcommittee, developing and teaching the Securitisation Professionals course.

Peter can be contacted at ptaplin@westpac.com.au.

Robert is co-founder and Investment Manager for the Realm Investment House, with over 20 years of market experience. He is well known and regarded in the domestic financial markets where he has held senior fund management positions. Robert has chaired and sat on a number of peak industry committees and task forces.

As a Senior Manager, Credit for Aviva Investors, Robert was also a key input to the management of $3.5 billion in debt assets and liaised with the equities team on a regular basis in the management of $6 billion of assets in this sector.

Robert has a strong grass roots understanding of the market, with embedded relationships across issuers, regulators and other market participants. Robert's key strength is in asset discovery and bottom up credit assessment. This has underpinned Robert's approach as a fixed income money manager. 

Robert can be contacted at rob.c@realminvestments.com.au.

Sarah Samson currently holds the role of Head of Securitisation at National Australia Bank.  This is a global securitisation business covering Australia, New Zealand, and UK. 

She has been in the securitisation team at NAB for the past 8 years, and worked at Standard and Poor’s in structured finance ratings in Melbourne and London prior to this, as a primary rating analyst and contributing to criteria and research.  

Sarah is well known to most issuers, investors, and other counterparties (law firms, rating agencies etc.) through her work on many transactions during her time in the industry, and has been the primary lead on many securitisation transactions which NAB has arranged and led, globally.  

Sarah has a double undergraduate degree from Monash University (Business Management and Business Marketing), and a Masters of Applied Finance (Melbourne University). 

Sarah is co-Chair of the Industry & Markets Subcommittee, and has previously been a member of the Women in Securitisation Subcommittee (2015-2017).  

Scott leads the Australian based debt investments team which includes cash, bond and credit strategies. Previously Scott had joint responsibility for managing the Specialised Credit Fund. 

He previously worked at Western Asset Management, a specialist credit fixed income manager, and its predecessor in Australia, Citigroup Asset Management, where he was Vice President, Fixed Income. 

Scott’s experience covers analysis of, and investing in, a broad range of credit and traditional fixed income products covering traditional duration based and specialist credit portfolios, annuity matching funds for insurance companies and cash/cash enhanced funds. 

He has been involved in a diverse range of transactions as a buyer and a seller, including PPP infrastructure, securitisation, structured credit and hybrid deals. Scott’s experience covers Australian and offshore markets. 

In previous roles he worked for Westpac in corporate banking and financial markets focusing on debt capital markets origination and sales, interest rate risk management, foreign exchange and money markets. This included a period in London. 

Scott is Chair of the Investors Subcommittee. 

Scott can be contacted at scott.barker@ifminvestors.com.

Will Farrant runs Credit Suisse’s Australian debt capital markets business based in Sydney, providing advice, balance sheet lending, structuring and distribution to clients seeking finance in Australian and global debt markets, in both secured and unsecured format. 

Will’s background has a strong securitisation theme.  Will started professional life as a London and Singapore-based securitisation lawyer with Norton Rose, before becoming an investment manager at Gordian Knot Investment Management in London, managing a USD25bn book of global ABS and CDO product.  

After moving to Australia in 2003, Will worked for two years in ANZs securitisation and structured credit trading teams.  He then moved to Credit Suisse in 2005 to head the Australian syndicate desk, heavily focussed on ABS product, which he ran until early 2009, at which point he moved to head DCM and subsequently securitisation origination.

Will is the chair of the Education Subcommittee, and has been a member of the Communications Subcommittee for many years.  He currently sits on a number of Governmental committees and advisory boards. 

Will can be contacted at will.farrant@credit-suisse.com.