Consumer ABS

The worsening trend for subprime lenders amid an otherwise healthy consumer economy is a puzzling development that even auto loan securitization experts were somewhat at a loss to explain at SFIG Vegas.

Lost in the battle between banks and retailers — which is being fought with renewed vigor in the early days of the Trump administration — is any consideration of how caps on interchange fees have affected consumer spending patterns.

Securitization pros are guardedly optimistic about the Trump Administration’s impact on the industry, even if no one expects to see a rollback of regulations imposed by the Dodd-Frank Act in the immediate future.

The Structured Finance Industry Group is teaming up with the trade association for the blockchain industry to explore ways that distributed ledger technology can be used to speed up transaction processing and improve transparency.

World Omni Financial Corp. is leasing cars to consumers with lower credit scores, and the risk is being compounded by the fact that so many leases mature at the same time.

Panelists at SFiG Vegas questioned just how different marketplace lenders are from more traditional lenders.

Santander Consumer USA Holdings plans to increase lending to consumers with solid credit scores after being squeezed by higher losses on its subprime auto book.

The Prime Collateralised Securities Initiative is aiming to boost synthetic securitization, which offer an alternative way for European banks to free up capital for more lending.

Volkswagen’s U.K. finance arm is marketing £750 million ($884 million) of bonds backed by auto leases.

The industry’s reliance on these yardsticks to estimate the riskiness of a pool of borrowers is mathematically flawed.