Consumer ABS

Just three years ago, the very idea of a consumer protection agency was dismissed by most bankers and industry representatives as a pipe dream.

The European sovereign debt crisis that continued unfolding in December led to downgrades of the sovereign ratings of Portugal, Greece and Ireland.

As credit card portfolio health continues to improve and consumer spending gradually picks up, receivables are poised to grow next year for the first time since the financial crisis, Moody's Investors Service said Wednesday.

With Toronto-Dominion Bank's $6.3 billion agreement to buy Chrysler Financial from the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, the Toronto banking giant is betting that demand for auto loans will pick up as the economy rebounds.

RBS Securities, the investment banking and brokerage unit of Royal Bank of Scotland, is looking to add trading and sales professionals and strategists specializing in Latin American markets, according to senior fixed-income officials.

New capital requirements under the Basel III framework would have cost banks roughly $770 billion had they been fully implemented at the end of last year, according to a 32-page study released Thursday by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.

Brazos Higher Education Authority is in the market with its Series 2010-1 FFELP-backed SLABS transaction.

Citibank has filed an S-3 with the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue under its Citibank Credit Card Issuance Trust.

The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) is selling as much as $1.2 billion of its corporate bailout bonds this week backed by student loan assets owned by the failed corporate credit unions.

Ally Bank is in the market with an auto ABS called Ally Auto Receivables Trust (AART) Series 2010-5. Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings are rating the deal.