Consumer ABS

With the Dodd-Frank Act and Basel capital regime already imposing new requirements on derivatives players, the U.S. bank regulators added another one Tuesday completely of their own accord.

Brokerage firm Laeken International plans to enhance its fixed-income and structured finance products focus by establishing a structured finance strategy and analytics team.

After several months of strong performance despite various economic upheavals, auto ABS gains may soon level off, according to a report from Fitch Ratings.

Discover Financial Services' stock price fell as much as 3% on Friday after the company disclosed that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) is reviewing its marketing of payment protection and other fee-based products.

The U.S. Congress and U.S. regulatory agencies have imposed or proposed broad-based and aggressive laws and rulemaking in response to the failure of securitizations directly or indirectly backed by U.S. subprime residential mortgage loans originated in the several years prior to the onset of the financial crisis in 2007. Notwithstanding this aggressive response, there is no empirical evidence that transactions backed by other types of assets, including asset-backed securities (ABS) of foreign issuers, have been prone to such failures or merit coverage in the same regulatory scheme as applies to securitizations backed by subprime residential mortgage loans.

From Brussels to D.C., the season of powwows is here, and ASR's editors have certainly been getting around.

According to preliminary figures from the ASR Scorecards database, $31.03 billion in public ABS was issued in 1H11. This is a boost in comparison with the $26.41 billion recorded a year ago.

Regulation was a main focus at the recently concluded Global ABS 2011 conference held in Brussels in mid June. One of the issues was Solvency II, the proposed new European regulatory regime that, according to a report by Moody's Investors Service, is probably going to increase regulatory capital requirements for both European Union and European Economic Area insurers and reinsurers when it is implemented in 2013.

Tejas Securities Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Westech Capital Corp. hired Samir Shah as managing director and co-sales manager of structured products.

Santander Consumer Bank (SCB) is marketing an auto loan ABS worth €630 million ($915 million).