Finance

The average U.S. credit card chargeoff rate for most major issuers remains on track to continue declining for at least the next few months, according to analysts at Moody's Investors Service.

Refinancings caused loan production to spike in the fourth quarter but independent residential lenders experienced a 24% decline in how much they earned per loan, according to a new report from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

Consumer Portfolio Services (CPS) is marketing a subprime auto ABS called Consumer Portfolio Services Auto Receivables Trust 2011-A. The $104 million deal is being managed by UBS.

The European Union (EU) and U.S. regulators might be on the same page when it comes to trying to get the securitization market to be more risk averse. However, their different approaches have left a gap that needs to be eventually bridged, industry sources said .

Cantor Fitzgerald's first-ever CMBS called CFCRE 2011-C1, which is backed by 38 loans in 67 properties, priced today.

Auction.com plans to put out for bid at least two commercial real estate (CRE) loan packages per month for the next three months totaling more than $1.86 billion.

Ginnie Mae guaranteed over $24.1 billion in MBS in March, the agency announced in a release today.

The vast majority of credit unions reject the Republicans’ plan to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and insist that the government retain a role in the secondary mortgage market, according to a new survey by the National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU).

BlackRock hired Jack Chandler as global head of real estate. In this new position, Chandler will oversee the firm's global real estate capabilities that extend across the capital market structure and include both equity and debt investment products that have reached around $13 billion in assets under management.

Citigroup expects to increase its loss mitigation staff by 500 new hires and take a one-time $50 million charge to comply with a federal consent order it signed to settle servicing and foreclosure shortcomings.

Citigroup has sold $10 billion of residential mortgages over the past five quarters as it continues to shrink its “bad bank,” which is known as Citi Holdings.

Single-family housing starts unexpectedly jumped 7.7% in March and the government revised upward its estimates of building activity in February and January by 23,000 units.

World Omni Financial Corp. filed a preliminary prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to issue a $716.8 million auto lease ABS under its World Omni Automobile Lease Securitization Trust 2011-A.

With the bulk of Kazakh transactions backed by diversified payment rights (DPRs) having been paid down over the past few years, it is refreshing to see that ATF Bank is extending the life of its outstanding DPR notes, even with only $100,000 left.

Turkey’s Denizbank is out with a $300 million structured deal consisting of five series, all scoring ‘BBB+(exp)’ from Fitch Ratings. West LB is the arranger. No word yet on whether private-sector investors are potential buyers but one market source said that a multilateral is buying at least a portion of the deal. In an interview with ASR earlier this year, Noel Edison of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development had indicated that the institution would be funding additional Turkish banks this year via DPR programs following a deal in late 2010 with Garanti Bank.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is reportedly publishing a letter later this month outlining plans for a data warehouse of underlying loans that back ABS deals.

Scottish Re Group has entered into agreements to unwind the 2005 Orkney I securitization deal as well as to cede the Orkney block of business to Hannover Life Reassurance Co. of America.

Barclays Capital announced in an internal memo that Diane Rinnovatore will become co-head of securitized products origination (SPO) along with with Cory Wishengrad, who is currently co-head of SPO and head of the esoteric ABS origination group at the bank. He has been running the Barclays esoteric ABS business since late 2008.

Standard & Poor's stated that the U.S. Treasury's support of the two GSEs impacted its choice to revise the outlook on the U.S. long-term sovereign credit rating to negative from stable.

Legacy private-label RMBS market participants should take note: junior bondholders in certain vintages of low-rated nonagency RMBS have, in some cases, ended up with a payoff due to slow liquidation timelines, and a “rare” servicing transfer risk has surfaced, according to two recent rating agency reports.