The Australian securitisation market had a strong March quarter, with issuance close to A$20 billion, and plenty of activity already in the new quarter.

Bloomberg data released by the Australian Securitisation Forum show that Westpac’s $2.75 billion issue of residential mortgage-backed securities in January was the biggest deal so far this year but the bulk of RMBS issuance was from non-banks once again.

Firstmac issued $2 billion of RMBS, ColCap $1.4 billion and LaTrobe more than $1 billion.

In the asset-backed securities market Angle Finance securitised more than $1 billion of auto loans, and Latitude, Zip, Resimac and Plenti all completed deals worth between $200 million and $500 million.

Issuance of ABS, RMBS and CMBS toped $50 billion last year, a post-GFC record. The way the market is going so far this year, issuance may exceed that amount.

Yesterday Resimac announced that it had settled a $750 million non-conforming RMBS transaction. The A2 notes, worth $450 million and with a weighted average life of 2.5 years, were priced at 135 basis points over the one-month bank bill swap rate.

Issuers with ABS or RMBS deals currently in the market or in preparation include Pepper, Thinktank, Suncorp Bank and humm.

Fitch released a structured finance update yesterday, saying ratings remain resilient, despite asset performance pressures. It said it expects the majority of global structured finance ratings to remain stable.

So far this year, structured finance upgrades have outnumbered downgrades by 780 to 41.