Structured finance is typically for borrowers – mostly large corporations – who have highly specified needs that a simple loan or other type of conventional financial instrument will not satisfy. In most cases, structured finance involves one or several discretionary transactions to be completed, thus evolved and often risky instruments must be implemented.

Structured financial products are typically not offered by traditional lenders. Generally, because structured finance is required for major capital injection into a business or organization, investors are required to provide such financing. Structured financial products are almost always non-transferable, meaning that they cannot be shifted between various types of debt in the same way that a standard loan is.
Increasingly, structured financing and securitization are used by corporations, governments and financial intermediaries in advancing, evolving and complex emerging markets to manage risk, develop financial markets, expand business reach and design new funding instruments. For these entities, using structured financing transforms cash flows and reshapes the liquidity of financial portfolios, in part by transferring risk from sellers to buyers of the structured products. Structured finance mechanisms have also been used to help financial institutions remove specific assets from their balance sheets.