8 asset-backed securities examples

Asset-backed securities turn payments on loans, leases or receivables into securities. To understand a transaction, start with who makes the payments, then trace how those payments reach each class of investor.

The eight examples below use “asset-backed” broadly. Market reports often separate mortgage-backed securities and CLOs from consumer ABS. The categories also overlap: a CLO is a type of CDO, and a synthetic CDO transfers credit risk through derivatives rather than simply passing through a pool of loan payments.

1. Mortgage-backed securities

Residential MBS draw on home mortgages; commercial MBS draw on loans secured by income-producing property. A homeowner's prepayment and a commercial building's balloon refinance can change cash flows for different reasons. Agency guarantees, where present, also need to be distinguished from private credit protection.

For a commercial property, useful questions include its reported NOI, debt service, occupancy and maturity date. The DSCR worked example shows why payment coverage and refinancing capacity are separate questions. Start with the CMBS directory to find a named transaction.

2. Collateralized debt obligations, including CLOs

A CDO holds debt exposures and issues securities with different priorities. Corporate-loan CLOs hold primarily leveraged business loans. Other CDOs can hold bonds or tranches of securitizations, adding another layer between the investor and the original borrowers.

Identify the collateral and the class before comparing yields or losses. The CLO vs CDO guide includes a dated fund holding in a specific CLO class. The Federal Reserve's CLO overview describes the underlying loan and tranche structure.

3. Auto loan and lease ABS

Auto loan ABS receive borrowers' loan payments. Auto lease structures also require attention to lease termination and vehicle residual values. For either, a change in an asset's balance needs context: repayment, repurchase and charge-off are different events.

A concrete example is BMW Vehicle Owner Trust 2025-A. A saved CMD+RVL comparison dated November 3, 2026 checks its August 31 and September 30 tapes. The newer tape contains 48,426 asset records, including records whose balances have fallen to zero. In that comparison:

The source tapes are accession 0000929638-26-003790, filed October 2, and accession 0000929638-26-004205, filed November 3. The rule counts can overlap: do not add them to count distinct affected loans. The two dollar amounts also measure different things. Neither is a delinquency rate.

The saved report provides aggregates and bounded samples of up to 25 assets per rule. It does not deliver a full loan tape or borrower credit scores, income or geography. The most recent complete run available when checked on November 12 was dated November 4; that run contained one new issue with no prior tape, so it produced no period comparison. The example above deliberately uses the November 3 comparison.

4. Credit card receivables ABS

Credit card trusts receive payments on revolving account balances. The pool can change as cardholders repay and make new purchases. A revolving period can also treat collections differently from the later amortization period.

Look for the payment rate, yield, charge-offs, excess spread and early-amortization provisions. An outstanding balance alone tells you little about the speed or reliability of collections. The OCC's investment-products guide describes credit card receivables and other ABS collateral.

5. Student loan ABS

Student loan securities depend on borrower payments, but loan programs and guarantees vary. A pool of private student loans should not be analyzed as though it carries a federal guarantee. Deferment, forbearance and repayment terms affect when cash arrives.

For a specific deal, identify the program, any guarantee and the share of balances in each repayment status. See student loan asset-backed securities. The Federal Reserve's TALF description lists student loans among the collateral types financed through ABS; it does not imply that every student loan security qualifies for government support.

6. Equipment loan and lease ABS

Equipment finance can cover construction machinery, trucks, office equipment and other business assets. Loan payments and lease rentals provide cash; the value and saleability of recovered equipment can affect recoveries.

Compare the equipment mix, remaining terms, lessee concentrations and residual-value assumptions. A fleet of specialized machines may have a narrower resale market than widely used equipment. The New York Fed's TALF collateral discussion gives examples of equipment used in securitizations.

7. Trade receivables securitizations

Businesses can finance invoices owed by customers. These receivables may turn over quickly, so the funding structure needs rules governing newly added receivables as old ones are collected.

Questions include customer concentration, overdue balances and dilution from returns, discounts or disputes. Invoice face value is not necessarily the amount that will be collected. The OCC guide above includes accounts receivable among ABS collateral types.

8. Synthetic CDOs

A synthetic CDO takes credit exposure through instruments such as credit default swaps. It need not own the loans or bonds whose defaults determine losses. Some structures hold collateral to secure obligations, but that is distinct from owning the referenced debt.

Read the reference portfolio, credit-event definitions, settlement terms and counterparty arrangements. The BIS comparison of CDO and CLO structures discusses the role of credit derivatives and resecuritization. Calling a structure “synthetic” changes the source of its exposure; it does not make it comparable to an ordinary auto-loan cash-flow pool.

Ask a question the data can answer

A category tells you where to start. A useful dataset request names the deal, reporting periods and fields, then asks for the source filings. Keep interpretation separate from retrieval: explaining why lease residual values matter is different from finding a reported change in a named trust.