Clayton Holdings will update its systems to accommodate the American Securitization Forum’s (ASF) Loan Identification Number Code (LINC) by Q110. Shelton, Conn.-based Clayton Holdings is a risk analysis, loss mitigation, operational solutions and staffing services firm for the securitization and mortgage industries. CEO Paul Bossidy and said the decision to support the new coding system is a step to promote transparency and reinvigorate the non-agency securitization market. “It will give investors an important new tool to track and analyze underlying collateral, much the way CUSIP [Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures] numbers are used with bonds,” Bossidy said. The code is a 16-character alphanumeric identifier assigned to individual loans in an asset-backed security (ABS) designed to give investors more information about the mortgages that comprise an ABS. The code identifies underlying loan type, origination date and country of origin. Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Fixed Income Risk Management Services (FIRMS) created LINC on behalf of ASF. The code starts with a two-letter code for the loan type — Residential Mortgage (RM), Auto Loan (AU), Credit Card (CR) or Student Loan (ST). Following that is a six digit code for the originate date in MMYYYY format. A two-letter International Organization for Standardization (ISO) country codes follows next. Next, a five-character alphanumeric code — which has 40m variations — to uniquely identify the loan. The last character is an algorithmic check-digit, used to confirm that all other digits in the code are correct. Write to Austin Kilgore.