This article reviews empirical findings concerning motives behind securitizationand its implications. It turns out that the main reasons for securitization are: earningsmanagement, regulatory capital arbitrage, liquidity management and funding problems.Securitization favours risk taking by entities in bad financial conditions and weakens, insome cases, incentives for careful screening of potential borrowers. On themacroeconomic level securitization lowers credit interest rates in the long term.