The term ‘structured credit’ has several different meanings. By one definition, it refers to a wide range of credit-derived products, including CDOs and credit derivatives. An alternative definition, and the one used in this primer, is that structured credit refers to tranched credit products.

By this definition, a fully distributed cash CDO is a structured credit product but it is not a credit derivative. Single name credit default swaps are credit derivatives but not structured credit products. And single-tranche credit derivatives, index tranches and nth-to-default baskets fall within the definition of both structured credit and credit derivatives.