OREANDA-NEWS. Fitch Ratings has today published updated rating criteria for assessing credit risk in Chilean residential mortgage loan pools that are used as collateral for structured finance transactions. This report updates and replaces the prior criteria report with the same name, dated Feb. 17, 2012.

The changes to the previous criteria relate to revised assumptions for recovery rates for Chilean mortgage portfolios. The revised assumptions include increased House Price Decline assumptions for every rating category, as well as the inclusion of a conservative property price indexation for properties valued before 2014. As a consequence of these changes, Fitch expects no impact on existing ratings.

The report sets out the Chilean-specific issues addressed in Fitch Ratings' analysis of securities backed by Chilean residential mortgage loans. The addendum should be viewed together with Fitch Research on 'Latin America RMBS Rating Criteria,' dated December 2015, available on Fitch's Web site at www.fitchratings.com, for a comprehensive understanding of Fitch's approach to rating Chilean RMBS transactions.

The published criteria assumptions will be utilized in rating new and existing Chilean RMBS transactions. Fitch's current portfolio is exclusively rated on the national scale identified by (cl) ratings suffix. The RMBS transaction surveillance process involves a number of quantitative and qualitative factors, including an assessment of market developments, loan-by-loan and pool-level analysis, and a comparison with current credit enhancement levels against a stress loss assumption at each rating category.