Fitch Ratings has updated its overall criteria “for assessing and analyzing the operational risk” of servicers of structured finance products including mortgage-backed securities transactions.
“The core criteria remain fundamentally the same,” Fitch’s spokesman Sandro Scenga told this publication. Changes represent “further consolidation” of existing requirements.
The updates replace “Global Rating Criteria for Structural Finance Servicers,” the ratings agency reported in August 2010.
While Fitch's servicer ratings will remain country-specific, the rating agency has decided to remove from the Web its “Rating Criteria for European Mortgage Loan Servicers—Russian Market Addendum.”
“This criteria is solely for the servicer ratings and other ratings, including some structured finance ratings” that are still issued and reported on the Fitch website, says Diane Pendley, Fitch’s managing director, operational risk group, structured finance. Currently Fitch does not have any servicer ratings in Russia, “so they will not have separate criteria.”
She told this publication, however, that if Fitch sees interest for ratings in Russia in the future, the analyst covering this market could provide assessments based on general “master” servicer rating criteria. “Until such time that the number of ratings would warrant a separate report or appendix.”
The updated criteria replace previous requirements for four European jurisdictions.
New appendixes for the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy replace Fitch’s 2010 market specific rating criteria for European mortgage loan servicers.
Another part of the report contains rating criteria updates for commercial property asset servicers operating in the Latin American market.
