OREANDA-NEWS. February 02, 2015. Fitch Ratings has affirmed the Short-Term rating of Abel Funding Pty Ltd's (Abel) asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) at 'F1sf'. Abel is a partially supported multi-seller ABCP conduit sponsored by The Royal Bank of Scotland plc (RBS, A/Negative/F1). The conduit has a maximum tenor of 185 days to fund the purchase of eligible assets up to an aggregate programme limit of AUD10bn and, as at end-November 2014, had AUD 233m of ABCP outstanding.

KEY RATING DRIVERS
The affirmation is based on the credit and liquidity support provided by RBS, the credit quality of the assets funded through the conduit, RBS' managerial capabilities, and the programme's legal structure.

A pool of five multi-seller asset portfolios is currently funded through the issuance of Abel's ABCP, four of which are partially supported by liquidity, thereby creating an exposure to the performance of the underlying assets for the ABCP note holders. One portfolio is fully supported by liquidity, which is available to cover defaults. Fitch has therefore taken the amount of enhancement and structural protection provided for these specific assets into consideration and determined that the level of support for the partially-supported assets is commensurate with the rating on the ABCP, and the rating of RBS.

The rating action reflects Fitch's view that fungible programme-wide credit enhancement by way of a letter of credit sized at a minimum of 8% of the outstanding ABCP, and liquidity support of up to 102% of the face value of ABCP outstanding, support the ABCP at the current rating. Both the liquidity support and letter of credit are currently provided by RBS.