Consumer ABS

Martin Fingerhut, previously a partner at Blake, Cassels & Graydon's (Blakes) financial services group and chair of the law firm's structured finance group, is moving to Cassels Brock & Blackwell, another Canadian law firm based in Toronto. Fingerhut was hired as a senior partner and head of the firm's securitization group.

AmeriCredit Financial Services and Ford Motor Credit Co. are both in the market with their respective auto ABS deals.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published a fact sheet this morning on a rule requiring ABS issuers to disclose the history of both the requests they received and repurchases they made related to their ABS outstanding.

GE Capital is in the market with GE Capital Credit Card Master Note Trust (GECCCMNT) Series 2011-1.

Standard & Poor's put 1,981 structured finance tranches in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) on creditwatch negative yesterday as a result of the revision of its counterparty criteria.

South Korean cross-border issuance of ABS will be spurred along by two developments in 2011, according to a report on structured finance in ex-Japan Asia by Moody’s Investors Service. One is the maturity of several credit-card and auto loan deals this year. The other is the arrival of potential new originators among credit card businesses freshly spun off by banks.

First Investors Financial Services is in the market with a 144A auto ABS transaction called First Investors Auto Owner Trust 2011-1 (FIAOT 2011-1).

SLM Corporation , better known Sallie Mae, has appointed Jonathan Clark executive vice president and CFO.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) will not exercise its authority under the Dodd-Frank Act to reclaim or recover assets transferred by a financial company into a securitization, said FDIC acting FDIC General Counsel, Michael Krimminger in a letter to the industry.

Some student loan ABS might experience downgrades if they do not meet proposed guidelines on operational risk outlined in a new report from Moody's Investors Service.