Consumer ABS

The White House Wednesday morning signaled its intention to make former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)through a recess appointment.

The fight over a capital surcharge for the largest banks took center stage in 2011, at least in the international Basel III process, as the chief executives of some major banks publicly clashed with regulators over the issue.

In the preliminary ASR Scorecards database public lead manager rankings for full-year 2011, JPMorgan Securities maintained its No. 1 rank from last year to capture the top spot again this year with a 16% market share and $12.03 billion sold. For the full year 2010, the bank held the top slot with a 15.6% market share $8.36 billion sold.

Federal regulators are seeking comment on a proposal that aims to lessen banks' reliance on credit ratings by proposing three methods for assessing risk on firms' trading books.

Holiday retail sales gave the National Association of Credit Management's (NACM) Credit Managers' Index (CMI) a boost to a high not seen since May, but it remained below year-ago levels as many companies, including some in the mortgage space, are still in distress.

The $66.4 billion scheduled to mature in credit card securitization could add an extra $14 billion to credit card ABS volumes in 2012, Wells Fargo analysts said in a report released today.

Mercedes-Benz Financial has filed a preliminary prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to issue an auto lease ABS under its Mercedes-Benz Auto Lease Trust.

As part of an ongoing effort to refinance and reduce its debt post-bankruptcy, CIT Group, a leading provider of financing to small businesses and middle market companies, announced Dec. 22 that it will redeem an additional $2 billion of 7% Series A Second Lien Notes, including the $1.6 billion remaining balance of its Notes maturing in 2015 and approximately $400 million of its Notes maturing in 2016.

Four federal regulators on Friday announced they would give commenters an additional month to weigh in on sweeping restrictions to banks' proprietary trading vehicles.

The recent widening between three-month U.S.-dollar Libor and the 90-day financial commercial paper rate is credit negative for FFELP SLABS, said Moody's investors Service recently in its publication called Moody's Student Loan Scholar.