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The collapse of Tricolor and First Brands in 2025 brought an underappreciated risk back into sharp focus: double pledged collateral.

While investigations are ongoing, major institutions including JPMorgan and Barclays have already disclosed $100m+ losses linked to these events.

The availability and transparency of loan-level data has improved significantly since the GFC. For providers of warehouse facilities and other funding lines the question is not whether data exists, but whether anyone is systematically reviewing it across funding lines, originators and transactions to identify double pledged collateral.

The Structural Gap in Current Controls

In a typical funding structure, multiple parties handle loan data: arranging banks, rating agencies, data repositories, auditors, law firms and servicers. Each performs a defined role, but none is explicitly tasked with conducting independent, cross-funder double pledge checks.

In both single-funder and multi-funder environments, it’s entirely possible for files to be processed by these entities without being cross-checked against prior transactions or parallel funding lines. For funding providers, this creates an avoidable exposure.

What robust control should include:

• Independent data ingestion from multiple counterparties
• Cross-facility borrower/property matching
• Periodic re-checking as portfolios evolve
• Independent confirmation to funders

The Role of Independent Verification

BCMGlobal is a leading independent European loan servicer with over 25 years’ experience supporting leading banks and financial institutions.

With over €45bn assets under management, we are specialists in residential and commercial mortgage servicing with significant experience handling, analysing and reporting on large loan-level data sets.

Building on this capability, we have already implemented additional independent checks for several key clients to identify duplicate entries across defined loan, property and borrower data fields.

These checks can be conducted:

• On any portfolio where we are appointed as servicer
• As a supplemental service where we are appointed as back-up servicer, or
• As verification agent, where a lender has multiple funding lines, which may be serviced by the lender and/or by one or more third party servicers, we can ingest data direct from multiple counterparties, complete our independent review and certify the outcome to each funder (whilst ensuring confidentiality of specific pool data between funders).

For funders Our service provides enhanced risk mitigation and independent oversight of originator controls, with formal reporting on any discrepancies.

For originators Our service offers a cost-effective opportunity to provide proactive, independent assurance to funders.

As double pledging risk continues to re-emerge in complex funding structures, independent verification is becoming a critical component of robust risk management. We are happy to discuss how these controls can be implemented in practice.