Issuance of securitisation deals backed by car loans is set to evolve further, with two emerging trends pinpointed at this year's ASF Conference in Sydney. During a panel discussion, ANZ’s structured capital markets director Fiona Gaal noted that treasurers with car finance securitisations in the market had been working harder than ever to keep investors informed of the performance of the portfolios in the wake of the Covid-related slowdown. “From the point of view of an arranger, the normal process of building a deal has changed over the past year,” Gaal told the audience of issuers and investors. Nevertheless, auto ABS deals have been a feature of capital markets for some time, and investors were generally keen to buy, panel members said. Jennifer Hellerud, managing director and head of securitisation, Australia, for RBS Capital Markets said: "Issuance has been really well supported over the course of 2023, coming in by 20 basis points [for the AAA tranches]. The international investor community has a view that Australia is somewhat insulated from what happens elsewhere in the world." She also predicted that issuance volumes would continue to grow to fill the void left by the big banks and that investors would see more frequent – and larger – transactions.  This would need to be met by both domestic and offshore investor bases as demand is already there. Ben Cranley, a portfolio manager at Flag Asset Management, agreed. "Auto ABS collateral performance has been very strong – it's not a new business," he said, adding that relatively small tranches had seen pricing for each deal become increasingly tighter, to the point where the AAA tranches for ABS deals would "grind in" and trade inside RMBS pricing.  Cleaner, greener cars will also start to make a difference: reporting on emissions will start to have a bigger influence on these loan pools and lenders’ books, as will the increasing use of EVs. Outside of the ASF Conference the National Automotive Leasing and Salary Packaging Association put out an upbeat statement, noting a jump in EV sales in Australia of more than 400 per cent since the middle of 2022, up from less than two per cent of new car sales in June 2022 to around nine per cent in recent months. NALSPA said it expected this sharp uptick in EV sales "to accelerate further as public awareness grows about the advantages of various government initiatives". "Changes legislated to novated leasing for electric vehicles in December 2022 through the EV [Fringe Benefit Tax] exemption allows everyday working Australians to achieve significant savings on the cost of an EV," said NALSPA chief executive Rohan Martin. Paolo Luzzani, previous head of funding, and now treasurer at consumer finance provider Plenti said his firm had only had one default on $100m worth of car loans written so far, but has not written any novated leases, and was not in a position to do so. (Novated leases are often provided as a salary packaging option by employers, paid out of pre-tax income, and would normally attract FBT). Conversely, Steve Mixter, group treasurer at