Hong Kong saw its second credit card securitization this year, in the form of a HK$540 million ($69.5 million) deal arranged by Citicorp for Aeon Credit Service (Asia), a consumer finance company headquartered in Japan.
An SPC called Aeon Credit Card Trust issued floating-rate certificates backed by receivables from Aeon Card and Aeon Mastercard customers. All the receivables are denominated in Hong Kong dollars and all the obligors are in Hong Kong. The transaction benefited from subordinated seller certificates, a reserve account, and a back-up servicing provided by the Bank of New York.
Thanks to a wrap provided by Financial Security Assurance, the deal was rated triple-A by Moody's and triple-Ar by Standard & Poor's. The r' subscript on S&P's rating indicates that the deal is rated higher than the sovereign rating of Hong Kong, explained the agency.
The deal was privately placed. But the absence of talk about the deal's placement led some sources to speculate that it was sold into one of Citicorp's conduits.
