What are Asset Backed Securities?

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In todays video we learn what are asset backed securities, what are credit card receivables and what is a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV)?

These classes are all based on the book Trading and Pricing Financial Derivatives, available on Amazon at this link.
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What is an Asset-Backed Security (ABS)?
An asset-backed security (ABS) is a financial security collateralized by a pool of assets such as loans, leases, credit card debt, royalties or receivables. For investors, asset-backed securities are an alternative to investing in corporate debt. An ABS is similar to a mortgage-backed security, except that the underlying securities are not mortgage-based.

Credit card asset-backed securities (ABSs) are fixed-income bonds based on the cash flow stream from pooled credit card accounts. First issued in 1987, credit card ABSs are mostly high quality, pay good yields, and are liquid, with transparent prices. The number of credit card ABSs increase as the use of credit increases. However, like most asset-backed securities and unlike most corporate or government bonds, credit card ABSs have only an average maturity rather than a specified maturity because the underlying cash flow is highly variable. Credit card ABSs are structured so as to mimic the cash flow of a typical bond, but the timing of the cash flow is usually not guaranteed.

The process of securitizing credit card receivables is very similar to that of securitizing mortgages and other loan obligations. A card issuer sells a group of accounts to a trust, which issues securities backed by those receivables. The card issuer still services the account, but the assets are removed from its balance sheet. This allows the card issuer to issue more accounts and to reduce its capital reserve requirements, the amount of money banks are required by law to hold to do business. This money doesn't earn interest, so, naturally, the card issuer wants to reduce its required reserves as much as possible. As the cardholders pay on their accounts monthly, most of the money is sent to the trust, which pays the holders of the credit card ABSs interest and principal. The card issuer retains a servicing fee and part of the finance charge as profit, and also includes part of the principal—the seller's interest.

Securitization allows more rapid growth of banks specializing in credit card issuances by providing a source of funding and transferring risk. Before the securitization of credit card receivables, card issuers borrowed money from a bank or relied on bank deposits to fund credit card loans. Securitization greatly expanded funding for credit card issuers, including monoline issuers, and issuers whose main business is not banking or issuing credit cards, such as Amazon.com.

A special-purpose vehicle, or special-purpose entity (SPE; or SPV, or, in some cases in each EU jurisdiction – FVC, financial vehicle corporation) is a legal entity (usually a limited company of some type or, sometimes, a limited partnership) created to fulfill narrow, specific or temporary objectives. SPEs are typically used by companies to isolate the firm from financial risk. A formal definition is "The Special Purpose Entity is a fenced organization having limited predefined purposes and a legal personality"

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