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...

Mortgages included in jumbo mortgage-backed securities in 2014 showed some shifting characteristics while maintaining strong underwriting overall, according to a new analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Looser underwriting on jumbo mortgages has largely been at the fringes: some MBS have included a cluster of mortgages with combined loan-to-value ratios of 80 percent, a few borrowers with credit scores below 680 and ... [Includes one data chart]

Redwood Trust, Credit Suisse and Two Harbors Investment are working on separate jumbo mortgage-backed securities that will be issued next week. The deals vary slightly by issuer, including some non-qualified mortgages in Redwood’s deal and sunset provisions on representations and warranties on Credit Suisse’s jumbo MBS. Redwood’s $338.80 million Sequoia Mortgage Trust 2015-1 is set to receive AAA rating with credit enhancement of 7.25 percent ...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s proposal to prohibit captive insurers from joining the Federal Home Loan Bank system included generalizations and inaccuracies, and it overstepped rulemaking boundaries, according to real estate investment trusts. The FHFA issued a proposed rule in September that would prohibit captive insurance companies from joining the FHLBank system. At least seven REITs have used captive insurers to gain access to ...

Standard & Poor’s surveillance of seasoned non-agency mortgage-backed securities backed by jumbo mortgages and Alt A loans played a factor in the $77 million settlement the rating service reached this week with regulators. The Securities and Exchange Commission and state attorneys general for New York and Massachusetts largely focused their settlement with S&P on ratings for commercial MBS. Just $1.0 million of the settlement concerned surveillance of non-agency MBS ...

Officials at Altisource Portfolio Solutions plan to provide services in the non-agency market as part of an effort to increase revenue and rely less on its former parent, Ocwen Financial. In a call with investors last week, CEO Bill Shepro said Altisource is developing products for members of the Lenders One mortgage cooperative. “The Lenders One members represent approximately 17 percent of the largely agency lending market, and with the banks withdrawing from ...

Some observers see a proposal from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to help lenders gain certainty regarding new products as helpful, while others warn that it is unworkable. In October, the CFPB proposed a system for issuing no-action letters to companies that want to offer innovative financial products but face “substantial uncertainty” regarding how the regulator might treat them. Affirmative no-action letters would state that the CFPB has no ...

Cove Financial, a lender that offered a unique rent-to-own program, went out of business at the end of 2014. The company recently notified loan originators offering its Mortgage Alternative Program that Cove “is no longer conducting business or offering MAP.” Officials said vendors and others that have partnered with the company will be contacted by an assignee for the benefit of creditors. The lender added that the closure doesn’t impact borrowers ...

Kroll Bond Rating Agency updated the default and loss model the firm uses for non-agency mortgage-backed securities last week. Among other changes, the rating service reduced its loss expectations for purchase mortgages, reduced assumed timelines for foreclosures and formalized the penalty for mortgages with debt-to-income ratios above 45.0 percent. Titan Capital Solutions announced this week that it will purchase mortgages ... [Includes five briefs]