The opening day of the Australian Securitisation Forum's annual conference in Sydney tackled the emergence of diverse collateral and new issuers as its opening in-depth topic. Early panel discussions featured a series of non-bank lenders, primarily those in consumer finance and small business lines rather than residential mortgage providers. One big theme here was that technology has started to open securitisation funding for these smaller players, although they are still working through strategies to satisfy ratings agencies and investors of the value of their product.Among the fintech lenders were some who are relatively new to the securitisation market, with balance sheet managers from Zip and Prospa keen to push the fact that they have the data and technology needed to make fast accurate lending decisions.Peter Gray, chief operating officer at consumer finance outfit zipMoney was a keen advocate of master trusts. "The successful launch of our master trust was a culmination of five years of planning and business processes," he said."But still there was the problem of differentiating ourselves, given the duration product, and the way we offered regulated and unregulated credit in the same receivables pools."We understood from day one that solving this debt funding piece was a critical requirement for our business if we wanted to scale.He said the company paid a high price for its seed funding, which came in the form of expensive loans from its high net worth early backers. "We needed to build a track record and started by paying 13 per cent. We understood that securitisation was the pathway to the cheapest cost of funds for the consumer loans that we currently offer."Through the use of a NAB warehouse facility zip were able to reduce their cost of funds. This was partly transferred into a securitisation of short-term loans, arranged by NAB, and which raised around A$400 million. That has certainly lowered the company's cost of funds.Raj Bhat, head of group capital management at small business lender Prospa, was of a similar mindset: "Quite a few years ago we decided securitisation was the way forward. The challenge for us was that unsecured small business loans are not a common asset class in this part of the world."The $50 million deal that Prospa struck in 2015 with alternative asset manager Carlyle Group was the first securitisation deal in Australia of unsecured, online business loans, and only the third such deal anywhere. This was part of a $60 million capital raising that was also backed by Ironbridge Capital, AirTree Ventures and British-based Entree Capital.Bhat said that Carlyle, through taking up Class B Notes, allowed Prospa "to write more loans, create data and to establish a track record.""Over time, we will create a track record and come to the term market in due course, once investors are comfortable," Bhat said. "We are funding long-term, lending short. This will allow the market to get comfortable with [this asset class].""Our aim is to reduce the cost of capital and pass that on to customers."Bhat dubbed this concept the