The Australian Securitisation Forum conference for 2015 was wrapped up on a high note, thanks to James Austin, Firstmac's chief financial officer and chief investment officer. He waited until the final session, responding to a question without notice, to announce Firstmac was contemplating the use of a master trust structure to appeal to offshore investors. He also said the additional bank funding costs of around 20 basis points will work in favour of smaller "non-ADIs" such as Firstmac.Austin was reacting to comments from Simon Maidment, deputy group treasurer for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Eva Zileli, head of group funding in National Australia Bank's treasury group, in which they said APRA's revised APS 120 draft securitisation regime on master trusts for the Australian securitisation market were workable.(Mastertrusts are structured around revolving securitisation facilities which create multiple series secured by the same pool of mortgages or other receivables. The volume of collateral required works against smaller ADIs.)"Certainly, from my perspective, I would be very keen to pursue the master trust option. A key benefit for us will be to be able to respond to reverse enquiries. As we go through the process with APRA and the ratings agencies, and the specific form and structure becomes clear, it's definitely worth pursuing," Zileli said.Reacting to the assertion that master trusts are just a toy for the majors to play with, Austin surprised the panel with his comment: "master trusts are a very important tool, something we are looking at right now."Hopefully we will be doing one next year. We don't need APRA approval to do it. And a key point here - and the reason why we're looking at a master trust structure - is the effect of the basis swap cost [which makes Australian issuance more expensive]," he said.By way of example Austin noted that with a favourable swap Firstmac was able to complete a $1 billion transaction with the participation of foreign investors. When the cost of the swap moved out those investors disappeared and the best that Firstmac could do in a recent transaction was $500 million.The master trust is so important because that's what allows an issuer to minimise the swap cost through bullet structures into offshore markets, Austin said.Continuing on this theme, he added that "one of the big benefits for the smaller end of the issuer spectrum" was that bank assets would be repriced afterwards by around 20 basis points, and so would the cost of warehousing as the cost of capital began to bite.Austin said that the extra 20 bps brought the cost of Australian RMBS more into line with the pricing in offshore markets. Nevertheless, the panel recognised that care needed to be taken in setting up a new class on bank funding instruments.Maidment: "As we demonstrated with covered bonds which have proved to be a valuable tool for us in terms of diversification, we have to demonstrate that the master trust structure is very clean, it's very consistent, develops a brand of its