Structured Finance Industry Group staff and some investor members met recently with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Structured Finance to talk about the initial reaction that investors had to the final Regulation AB II rule. Among topics addressed were market trends, operational aspects and scope of applicability of the final rule, according to an update SFIG provided its members recently. Meanwhile, the SFIG is...

Bank and thrift holdings of non-mortgage ABS hit a record $184.16 billion at the end of September, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis. That represented a significant 7.6 percent increase in bank ABS investment in just one quarter. But the sharp increase in industry holdings was fueled by a massive acquisition of credit card ABS by TD Bank, the U.S. operation of the Canadian-based Toronto-Dominion Bank. TD Bank reported...[Includes one data chart]

The odds are stacked against auto loan ABS issuers being able to significantly lower the amount of credit risk they have to retain in securitizations under the recently adopted risk-retention rule. That’s mostly because of the strict underwriting criteria for underlying loans to qualify for the exemption from the requirement, according to a new ABS research report from Moody’s Investors Service. “Under the final risk-retention rule of the Dodd-Frank Act, auto loan ABS issuers can reduce the financial interest they must retain in their transactions through a qualifying automobile loan (QAL) exemption,” explained report authors Jeffrey Hibbs, assistant vice president, and Henry Chen, an associate analyst. Issuers can put...[Includes one data chart]

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority revealed recently that a non-agency MBS trader at SG Americas Securities was fired by the firm and sanctioned by FINRA for pre-arranged trading. The self-regulatory organization said that on multiple occasions from 2001 through 2013, Yimin Ge entered into an agreement with counterparties at other institutions to engage in pre-arranged trading. FINRA said such deals violate the Securities Exchange Act as well as FINRA’s rules. The pre-arranged trades involved...

Shopping for credit ratings is alive and well despite the laws and regulations that have been put in place to curb the practice, but so far credit rating agencies have not lowered their standards, according to Morningstar Credit Ratings. “Arrangers and issuers of structured debt continue to tightly control the selection of credit rating agencies,” Morningstar said in a recent analysis. But information quality and transparency fall short of investor expectations, and the general interests of the key stakeholders remain somewhat misaligned, the rating service said. Arrangers and issuers of residential MBS, non-mortgage ABS and commercial MBS continue...

Ally Financial recently received subpoenas and document requests from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice over a broad array of lending and securitization activities, the company revealed in a recent Form 10-Q disclosure filed with the SEC. “The subpoenas and document requests from the SEC include information covering a wide range of mortgage-related matters, and the subpoenas received from the DOJ include a broad request for documentation and other information in connection with its investigations of potential fraud and other potential legal violations related to MBS, as well as the origination and/or underwriting of mortgage loans,” the company said. In addition, Ally recently received...

Participants in the residential mortgage market were largely pleased with the risk-retention requirements finalized last week for certain non-agency MBS. However, the requirements, which also cover commercial MBS and other ABS, drew a wide range of criticism from others. “The short version is that the rule doesn’t require meaningful credit risk retention where it counts, and imposes significant market-shaping safe-harbor requirements where skin in the game isn’t so important,” said Adam Levitin, a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center. He noted...

The Securities and Exchange Commission has provided more details about a pilot project to test the revised requirements for shelf registrations that are part of Regulation AB II. ABS issuers must comply with the new rules and forms, other than asset-level disclosures, no later than Nov. 23, 2015. The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance recently invited ABS issuers to request staff review of their registration statements in draft form, prior to filing. “We will select...

Issuers of securities backed by assets other than residential mortgages were able to win some concessions from federal regulators in the final risk-retention rule that was approved this week. However, the standards for “qualified” loans that are exempt from risk-retention requirements are much more stringent than those for qualified-residential mortgages, even including downpayment requirements in some instances. The risk-retention requirements for non-mortgage ABS and commercial MBS take effect two years after the final rule is published in the Federal Register. Securities that include loans that don’t qualify for exemptions will be required to have risk-retention of at least 5.0 percent, though there are instances when the required retention can be lower. The final standards qualifying commercial loans, commercial real-estate loans and auto loans were...

New issuance of non-mortgage ABS faltered again in the third quarter of 2014, slipping 5.4 percent from the second quarter, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis. Issuers produced $46.48 billion of new ABS during the third quarter. While that marked the second straight quarterly decline after the robust $53.44 billion issued in early 2014, current issuance levels remained relatively high for the post-crisis period. Through the first nine months of 2014, new ABS issuance totaled...[Includes three data charts]