{"schema_version":2,"canonical_url":"https://asc.understandingaccounting.org/asc/860/10/#05-overview-and-background","source":"FASB Accounting Standards Codification, Basic View","usage":"Study and research edition. Verify current requirements with the official source. Summaries, enrichment, and tags are machine-generated study aids. Paragraph html preserves source markup; snippet is abbreviated. Pending content is not necessarily effective.","topic":"860","topic_title":"Transfers and Servicing","subtopic":"860-10","subtopic_title":"Overall","section":{"number":"05","label":"05 Overview and Background","anchor":"05-overview-and-background","is_sec":false,"groups":[{"block":null,"heading":null,"paragraphs":[{"citation":"860-10-05-1","para":"05-1","html":"The Transfers and Servicing Topic establishes accounting and reporting standards for
transfers and servicing of
financial assets. It also establishes the accounting for transfers of servicing rights.
The Transfers and Servicing Topic includes the following four Subtopics:
- a
Overall
- b
Sales of Financial Assets
- c
Secured Borrowings and Collateral
- d
- e
Servicing Assets and Liabilities.
This Subtopic, together with the other Subtopics within this Topic, provides accounting and reporting standards for transfers and servicing of financial assets. It also addresses transfers of servicing rights.
Accounting for transfers in which the transferor has no continuing involvement with the transferred financial assets or with the transferee has not been controversial. However, transfers of financial assets often occur in which the transferor has some continuing involvement either with the assets transferred or with the transferee. Examples of continuing involvement with the transferred financial assets include, but are not limited to, any of the following: - a
Servicing arrangements
- aa
- aaa
Guarantee arrangements
- b
- c
Agreements to purchase or redeem transferred financial assets
- d
Options written or held
- dd
- ddd
Arrangements to provide financial support
- e
- f
Transfers of financial assets with continuing involvement raise issues about the circumstances under which the transfers should be considered as sales of all or part of the assets or as secured borrowings and about how transferors and transferees should account for sales and secured borrowings. This Topic establishes standards for resolving those issues. Sales and other transfers may result in a disaggregation of financial assets and liabilities into components, which become separate assets and liabilities. This Subtopic provides guidance on accounting for such transfers and provides consistent standards for distinguishing transfers of financial assets that are sales from transfers that are secured borrowings.
Transfers of financial assets take many forms. This guidance provides an overview of the following types of transfers discussed in this Topic: - a
- b
Factoring
- c
Transfers of receivables with recourse
- d
Securities lending transactions
- e
- f
- g
Banker's acceptances.
An originator of a typical securitization (the transferor) transfers a portfolio of financial assets to a securitization entity, commonly a trust. Financial assets such as mortgage loans, automobile loans, trade receivables, credit card receivables, and other revolving charge accounts are financial assets commonly transferred in securitizations. Securitizations of mortgage loans may include pools of single-family residential mortgages or other types of real estate mortgage loans, for example, multifamily residential mortgages and commercial property mortgages. Securitizations of loans secured by chattel mortgages on automotive vehicles as well as other equipment (including direct financing or sales-type leases) also are common.
Beneficial interests in the securitization entity are sold to investors and the proceeds are used to pay the transferor for the transferred financial assets. Those beneficial interests may comprise either a single class having equity characteristics or multiple classes of interests, some having debt characteristics and others having equity characteristics. The cash collected from the portfolio is distributed to the investors and others as specified by the legal documents that established the entity.
Securitizations of credit card and other receivable portfolios usually involve a specified reinvestment period (usually 18 to 36 months), during which the trust will purchase additional credit card receivables generated by the selected accounts. After the reinvestment period, a period of liquidation occurs during which the investors receive an allocated portion of principal payments relating to receivables in the trust. The liquidation method may vary depending on the terms of the agreement and may be a participation method (payout allocation rate may be fixed, preset, or variable) or a controlled amortization method (payout based on a predetermined schedule). Specific methods are as follows:
- a
- b
- c
Credit card securitizations (and other types of securitizations) may include a removal-of-accounts provision that permits the seller, under certain conditions and with trustee approval, to withdraw receivables from the pool of securitized receivables. Many securitization structures provide for a disproportionate distribution of cash flows to various classes of investors during the amortization period, which is referred to as a turbo provision. For example, a turbo provision might require the first $100 million of cash received during the amortization period of the securitization structure to be paid to one class of investors before any cash is available for repayment to other investors. Similarly, certain revolving-period securitizations use what is referred to as a bullet provision as a method of distributing cash to their investors. Under a bullet provision, during a specified period preceding liquidating distributions to investors, cash proceeds from the underlying assets are reinvested in short-term investments other than the underlying revolving-period receivables. Those investments mature or are otherwise liquidated to make a single bullet payment to certain classes of investors.
Factoring arrangements are a means of discounting accounts receivable on a nonrecourse, notification basis. Accounts receivable in their entireties are sold outright, usually to a transferee (the factor) that assumes the full risk of collection, without recourse to the transferor in the event of a loss. Debtors are directed to send payments to the transferee.
In a transfer of an entire receivable, a group of entire receivables, or a portion of an entire receivable with recourse, the transferor provides the transferee with full or limited recourse. The transferor is obligated under the terms of the recourse provision to make payments to the transferee or to repurchase receivables sold under certain circumstances, typically for defaults up to a specified percentage.
Securities lending transactions are initiated by broker-dealers and other financial institutions that need specific securities to cover a short sale or a customer's failure to deliver securities sold. Securities custodians or other agents commonly carry out securities lending activities on behalf of clients. Transferees (borrowers) of securities generally are required to provide collateral to the transferor (lender) of securities, commonly cash but sometimes other securities or standby letters of credit, with a value slightly higher than that of the securities borrowed. If the collateral is cash, the transferor typically earns a return by investing that cash at rates higher than the rate paid or rebated to the transferee. If the collateral is other than cash, the transferor typically receives a fee.
Because of the protection of collateral (typically valued daily and adjusted frequently for changes in the market price of the securities transferred) and the short terms of the transactions, most securities lending transactions in themselves do not impose significant credit risks on either party. Other risks arise from what the parties to the transaction do with the assets they receive. For example, investments made with cash collateral impose market and credit risks on the transferor.
Government securities dealers, banks, other financial institutions, and corporate investors commonly use repurchase agreements to obtain or use short-term funds. Repurchase agreements can be effected in a variety of ways. Some repurchase agreements are similar to securities lending transactions in that the transferee has the right to sell or repledge the securities to a third party during the term of the repurchase agreement. In other repurchase agreements, the transferee does not have the right to sell or repledge the securities during the term of the repurchase agreement. For example, in a tri-party repurchase agreement, the transferor transfers securities to an independent third-party custodian that holds the securities during the term of the repurchase agreement.
Many repurchase agreements are for short terms, often overnight, or have indefinite terms that allow either party to terminate the arrangement on short notice. Other repurchase agreements are for longer terms, sometimes until the maturity of the transferred financial asset (repo to maturity).
In certain industries, a typical customer's borrowing needs often exceed its bank's legal lending limits. To accommodate the customer, the bank may participate the loan to other banks (that is, transfer under a participation agreement a portion of the customer's loan to one or more participating banks).
Transfers by the originating lender may take the legal form of either assignments or participations. The transfers are usually on a nonrecourse basis, and the transferor (originating lender) continues to service the loan. The transferee (participating entity) may or may not have the right to sell or transfer its participation during the term of the loan, depending on the terms of the participation agreement.
Banker's acceptances provide a way for a bank to finance a customer's purchase of goods from a vendor for periods usually not exceeding six months. Under an agreement between the bank, the customer, and the vendor, the bank agrees to pay the customer's liability to the vendor upon presentation of specified documents that provide evidence of delivery and acceptance of the purchased goods. The principal document is a draft or bill of exchange drawn by the customer that the bank stamps to signify its acceptance of the liability to make payment on the draft on its due date.
Once the bank accepts a draft, the customer is liable to repay the bank at the time the draft matures. The bank recognizes a receivable from the customer and a liability for the acceptance it has issued to the vendor. The accepted draft becomes a negotiable financial instrument. The vendor typically sells the accepted draft at a discount either to the accepting bank or in the marketplace.
A risk participation is a contract between the accepting bank and a participating bank in which the participating bank agrees, in exchange for a fee, to reimburse the accepting bank in the event that the accepting bank's customer fails to honor its liability to the accepting bank in connection with the banker's acceptance. The participating bank becomes a guarantor of the credit of the accepting bank's customer.