ABS

Fitch Ratings has withdrawn Wilshire Credit Corp.'s U.S. residential servicer ratings.

The final provisions of the Credit CARD Act take effect in August, but issuers are still in the dark about several key requirements that will affect how they calculate penalty fees.

In light of regulatory trends, Moody’s Investor Service said that bank-sponsored ABS can face rating downgrades in the absence of adjustments to these programs' structural features or, as an alternative, an assurance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC).

Mortgage rates for the week ending June 3 remained almost the same from last week, according to Freddie Mac.

DBRS further clarified its interpretation of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rule 17g-5. The credit rating agency disclosed its planned approaches for both exempt and non-exempt structured finance (SF) instruments in light of the changes to the said ruling.

Guy Carpenter & Co. named Bill Kennedy as global CEO of analytics, capital markets, specialty practices and advisory effective July 1.

Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., is urging House conferees on a regulatory reform bill to support a Senate-passed amendment aimed at reforming the credit rating process that led to 'AAA'-ratings for subprime mortgage-backed securities that have subsequently faced several waves of downgrades.

Moody's Investors Service launched a new quarterly newsletter called Structured Credit Perspectives, which was published beginning today.

Moving away from Washington D.C., the American Securitization Forum (ASF) has announced that its annual conference, ASF 2011, will be held in Orlando, Florida next February.

Despite near record low mortgage rate levels, refinancing response was very muted for the week ending May 28.

CIT Group Inc. is rounding out its executive suite, taking another step toward normality for the financing company — and potentially earning regulators' approval for John Thain's planned shift toward a banking model.

Standard & Poor’s appointed Howard Esaki as managing director and head of the rating agency's new global structured finance research department.

It's no secret that the GSEs have been demanding billions of dollars in loan buybacks over the past year, but now Freddie Mac is warning that some of its seller/servicers may not meet their repurchase obligations.

Mortgage lenders that finance vacation homes on the Jersey Shore of the Garden State may have more to worry about this year than just the negative image of beach towns caused by the MTV reality series of the same name.

Ginnie Mae said a recent change it made to its Ginnie II MBS program will help mortgage bankers with their warehouse lines of credit.

Barclays has arranged a $350 million term loan backing Ocwen Loan Servicing’s acquisition of HomEq Servicing, according to Bloomberg.

CIT Group has hired a new credit chief along with a new head of administrative affairs, the New York-based middle-market lender announced Tuesday.

European CMBS loans saw a slight decrease in repayments during the month of May, according to figures reported by Fitch Ratings Maturity Repayment Index.

Any examination of the causes of the financial crisis is exceedingly complex, with a variety of causes that include bad lending, monetary policy mistakes, a bubble in real estate prices, bank capitalization, etc. In this light, the recent congressional hearings on Goldman Sachs should not be dismissed as mere theatrics, as they highlighted the industry's willingness and ability to unload defective transactions into the market. A candid assessment of the causes of the crisis and the future of securitized lending forces us to address why the "market forces" that had protected investors in prior years failed to prevent the market from being flooded with flawed securities. It is imperative that we understand and identify market functions, determine why they broke down and devise both market- and regulation-based remedies.

Held in May, the Securitization and Structured Finance in Latin America (SiLAS) conference hosted by Euromoney Seminars and LatinFinance turned out to be a postmortem of sorts, except that the event being taken apart - the crisis and its aftermath - is not entirely over, especially in Mexico.