On March 14, S&P revised its criteria for using third-party due diligence results to assess U.S. residential loan types, including prime, Alt-A, HELOC and subprime.  Changes from the previous criteria include (i) provision for modified sampling for flow originations; (ii) provision for accepting data in the ASF file format; (iii) removal of the potential link between an RMBS rating and the rating of the representations and warranties provider, as well as the resulting impact on due diligence sampling; and (iv) clarification regarding the materiality of regulatory compliance findings.  S&P Report.

On March 14, S&P revised representations and warranties criteria for U.S. RMBS.  S&P Report.

On March 13, S&P revised its default and correlation parameters for sovereign debt assets in CDOs.  S&P Report.

On March 13, S&P released its methodology for CDOs and pooled TOBs backed by U.S. municipal debt.  S&P Report.

On March 13, Fitch published an exposure draft on revised criteria for counterparty risk in covered bond programmes.  Fitch Exposure Draft.

On March 12, Fitch published an exposure draft of its criteria for analyzing counterparty risk in structured finance transactions.  Feedback is requested by April 13.  Fitch Release.  Fitch Exposure Draft.

On March 12, S&P released its methodology for U.S. federal future flow securitizations.  S&P Release.

On March 12, S&P requested comment by April 12 on proposed criteria for evaluating enterprises’ management and governance.  S&P Release.

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