Interest in the structured-finance market remains strong, but issuers continue to struggle with regulations and sometimes limited demand for their offerings. Just over 6,000 people registered for the ABS Vegas conference this week sponsored by the Structured Finance Industry Group and Information Management Network, up from more than 5,300 registrants in 2014. Jade Friedensohn, a senior vice president at IMN, said the conference set an attendance record for the structured-finance industry. A poll of attendees by the conference organizers suggested...

Standard & Poor’s emerged as the top rating service in both non-agency MBS and non-mortgage ABS securitizations in 2014, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking. S&P rated $8.91 billion of non-agency MBS last year, or 25.4 percent of total issuance. Rating information is not available on most scratch-and-dent transactions and re-securitizations that are typically issued as private placements. S&P’s market share was down from 40.0 percent of non-agency MBS issued in 2013, when there were more transactions with multiple ratings. DBRS, which reports its ratings on re-securitizations, actually was involved...[Includes two data charts]

Internal differences among Democrats and Republicans – let alone the strong differences between the two parties – have prevented Congress from resolving the conservatorship of the two government-sponsored enterprises, according to industry analysts. At the ABS Vegas conference this week sponsored by the Structured Finance Industry Group and Information Management Network, two people with intimate knowledge of matters in the House and Senate pointed to inter-party issues regarding GSE reform. Andrew Olmem, a partner at the law firm of Venable and a former Republican chief counsel and deputy staff director at the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs until 2013, noted...

BlackRock Financial Management plans to issue a unique ABS backed by peer-to-peer consumer loans originated via the platform established by Prosper Marketplace. Moody’s Investors Service assigned ratings to Consumer Credit Origination Loan Trust 2015-1 last week, noting a number of issues for investors to consider. The ABS is expected to have a balance of $344.85 million. The loan pool Moody’s examined had a balance of $306.71 billion as of the end of December. Approximately 14 percent of the total assets are expected to be added after closing. The deal doesn’t have a projected closing date yet, according to Moody’s. The rating service assigned...

Issuance of jumbo MBS and ABS has grown since 2010, but pending Federal Reserve actions regarding interest rates could stop the trend this year, according to industry analysts. The Fed is expected by many to increase interest rates for the first time in years, perhaps as soon as the end of the second quarter of 2015. Standard & Poor’s warned last week that interest rate hikes could threaten the still-rebounding structured finance market. “The Fed’s normalization of monetary policy could create...

Issuers of non-agency MBS will likely continue to favor private placements over registering deals with the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to industry participants. While publicly registered deals in the ABS market and commercial MBS market are common, no non-agency MBS issued in 2014 was registered with the SEC. Instead, non-agency MBS issuers offered deals as 144A private placements. An official involved in the non-agency MBS market said...

The European Central Bank’s launch of a Fed-like quantitative easing program will likely keep the yield spread flat and interest rates low. The ECB plans monthly purchases of €60 billion in ABS and covered bonds issued by central governments, agencies and banks in the euro zone. U.S. experts have been mulling...

A total of $185.32 billion of non-mortgage ABS were issued in 2014, the highest annual production level for the market since 2007, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking. ABS issuance was up 12.0 percent from the prior year, with solid gains in three of the market’s key sectors: auto finance, credit cards and business loans. The weakest link was the student loan ABS market, where annual production fell 25.4 percent from 2013 and slipped to its lowest level since 1999. Vehicle finance deals were...[Includes two data charts]

Issuers of auto ABS are loosening underwriting standards and delinquencies on subprime auto loans are increasing, but industry analysts suggest that there is little cause for concern. Performance remains much stronger than the delinquencies seen during the financial crisis and issuers are unlikely to loosen underwriting to the extent seen in the run-up to 2008. For independent finance companies, 60+ delinquencies increased by 13.7 percent in the past year, from 1.82 percent in the third quarter of 2013 to 2.07 percent in the third quarter of 2014, according to the latest data from Experian Automotive. Independent finance companies focus primarily on lending to subprime borrowers, and their delinquency trends outpaced any increase in delinquencies for other types of lenders that lend primarily to prime borrowers. Peter McNally, a vice president and senior analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, said...

New MBS and ABS issuance last year was down 34.4 percent from 2013, largely due to a huge decline in agency single-family MBS production, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. A total of $1.145 trillion of residential MBS and non-mortgage ABS were issued during 2014, the lowest annual production volume since 2000. Last year got off to a very slow start, with just $517.0 billion in new issuance through the first six months of 2014, before gaining pace during the second half. Total issuance fell 4.8 percent from the third to the fourth quarter. Agency MBS remained...[Includes three data charts]