Auto lending

While student, auto and credit card balances are at or near record levels, housing debt is shrinking, credit quality is weakening a bit and lending standards, at least in some sectors, are tightening.

New research from the New York Fed found that banks with more than $50 billion of assets originate more subprime car loans than small banks and credit unions do.

Executives from Ally Financial and Santander Consumer USA gave rosy outlooks about 2019 consumer trends, while other banks that rely less heavily on car lending offered more cautious appraisals.

The collateral for the $550 million transaction is slightly weaker than that of its prior deal, but rating agencies expect cumulative net losses to be in the same range.

More than 45% of collateral for the $254.4 million CPSART 2019-A are either "preferred," "super alpha” or “alpha plus”; that's up from 42.4% of collateral for the prior deal.

CarMax Superstores' first $1.2B-$1.5B prime loan securitization of 2019 has its lowest concentration to date of passenger vehicles in its nearly 20 years selling notes backed by receivables.

The latest deal from the sponsor's DRIVE platform for deep subprime loans benefits from recent improvements in underwriting; both S&P and Moody's have lowered loss expectations.

Automating the loan application process is a potentially game-changing development that could put more car shoppers in control of which bank or credit union finances their purchase.

The agency alleges the subprime auto lender violated consumer finance laws by misrepresenting the level of guaranteed insurance protection.

Both S&P and Moody's have cut expected losses on $732 million deal, yet credit enhancement on the senior tranches is unchanged from the prior deal.