OREANDA-NEWS. April 21, 2015. Fitch Ratings has affirmed the ratings of the senior notes at 'AAAsf' and upgrades the subordinate notes to 'AAsf' from 'Asf' issued by SLM Private Education Loan Trust 2013-B. The Rating Outlook remains Stable.

The upgrade to the subordinate notes is due to an increase in total parity as the trust continues to generate excess spread and higher loss coverage available to the subordinate notes.

A detailed list of rating actions follows at the end of this press release.

KEY RATING DRIVERS

Adequate Collateral Quality: The trust is collateralized by approximately \\$1.13 billion of private student loans as of February 2015. The loans were originated by Navient Corporation (Navient) fka SLM Corporation. Fitch projected remaining defaults to range between 9%-11% as of the current principal balance based on data provided by Navient. A recovery rate of 10% was applied which was determined to be appropriate based on data provided by the issuer.

Sufficient Credit Enhancement (CE): is provided by overcollateralization (OC; the excess of trust's asset balance over bond balance) and excess spread. Class A notes benefit from subordination provided by the class B notes. As of February 2015, senior and total parity ratios were 148.22% and 129.65%, respectively. The trust cannot release any excess cash until it reaches its specified OC amount, which is the greater of 40% of the pool balance and \\$13,063,940. Currently, no excess cash is being released from the trust.

Adequate Liquidity Support is provided by a reserve account sized at approximately \\$3.27 million.

Satisfactory Servicing Capabilities: Day-to-day servicing is provided by Navient Solutions, Inc. Fitch believes the servicing operations are satisfactory at this time.

RATING SENSITIVITIES

As Fitch's base case default proxy is derived primarily from historical collateral performance, actual performance may differ from the expected performance, resulting in higher loss levels than the base case. This will result in a decline in CE and remaining loss coverage levels available to the notes and may make certain note ratings susceptible to potential negative rating actions, depending on the extent of the decline in coverage. Fitch will continue to monitor the performance of the trust.

Fitch has taken the following rating actions:

SLM Private Education Loan Trust 2013-B:

--Class A-1 affirmed at 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable;
--Class A-2A affirmed at 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable;
--Class A-2B affirmed at 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable;
--Class B upgraded to 'AAsf' from 'Asf'; Outlook Stable.