Consumer ABS

Barbara Desoer, the president of Bank of America's home loans division who was once considered a possible successor to former Chief Executive Ken Lewis, will retire at the end of February, BofA said Friday.

Standard and Poor's expects bank card charge-offs to stay at low levels in 2012 as long as trusts maintain current credit compositions. The rating agency's analysts said that this is positive for credit card ABS collateral.

CoBiz Financial will begin providing asset-based loans to middle market businesses through its newly formed CoBiz Structured Finance.

American Express has filed an S-3 with the Securities Exchange Commission to issue under its American Express Credit Account Master Trust.

Ally Financial just can't escape its troubled mortgage unit, which dragged the company's fourth-quarter results into the red on Thursday.

Recoveries against bad loans have become a major source of cash for credit card issuers, and hence an increasingly important factor in the industry’s return to pre-recession loss rates.

As if new capital requirements penalizing risky asset-backeds weren't enough, banks may soon have to pay higher deposit insurance assessment fees relative to the riskiness of the ABS they hold on their books. This further challenges their participation in the securitization market.

Although American Securitization Forum (ASF) conferences are usually more U.S.-centric, this year's ASF 2012 had more of a global focus.

There were 5,119 registrants at ASF 2012 - an impressive show of strength considering the issuance tally for certain market segments. But let's not forget: there've been only four Jumbo RMBS in the last three years.

In January, Fitch Ratings put out a report that highlighted ratings volatility in securitizations that are retained by European originators, primarily to use as collateral for funding with the European Central Bank (ECB).