The Structured Finance Industry Group has hired Falcon Capital Advisors as well as a consultancy run by Kristi Leo to help it attract new members and pursue its legislative agenda.

Fitch, in a press release today, stated that while the recovering U.S. housing market and macro stability are bolstering remnant U.S. RMBS performance lately, persistent challenges remain for the sector to overcome. Fitch said that because pre-crisis RMBS transactions are still facing challenges, rating improvement will remain limited in the near term and it only expects future upgrades to come to RMBS classes with relatively short remaining lives within sequential payment priority transactions.

The Massachusetts Education Financing Authority (MEFA, or the authority) is offering $304.72 million of its Education Loan Revenue Issue K bonds. The fixed-rate Series 2013 is the first issuance under the Issue K indenture, a master trust.

PFS Financing Corp plans to issue a $282 million securitization backed by insurance premium finance loans, which are usually installment loans that have less-than-one-year duration.

California Republic Bank staged a return to the securitization market with its $238 million California Republic Auto Receivables Trust 2013-1.

Sallie Mae plans to issue SLM Private Education Loan Trust 2013-3, its third student loan-backed securitization of the year, totaling $1.246 billion.

Ford Motor Credit Co. plans to issue $1.38 billion of notes over two series issued from its floorplan master owner trust, according to Fitch Ratings.

Standard & Poor’s has joined the chorus warning of deeper risks in conduit CMBS issued this year compared with 2012-and-earlier vintages.

GE Money Bank Switzerland is planning a CHF200 million ($213M) issue backed by Swiss auto lease receivables, the second Swiss Auto ABS of 2013.

.Three subprime auto loan backed deals from General Motors, DriveTime Automotive and First Investors join the pipeline this week

The overall 30+ day CMBS DQ rate has fallen about 50 bps year to date to 9.07%, according to Trepp figures and this trend is likely to continue in 2013.

Springleaf Financial is looking to top up its debut consumer loans asset-backed securitization issued in February with a $400 million deal.