Bank of America sells $900 mln credit card ABS

NEW YORK May 5 (Reuters) - Bank of America Credit Card Trust priced an expanded $900 million offering of credit card securities in the U.S. asset-backed market on Wednesday amid solid reception from investors, market sources said.

The single-tranche credit card deal dubbed "BACCT 2010-A1," was initially marketed at a size of $750 million. Its AAA-rated 2.92-year notes were launched at a spread of 30 basis points over one-month Libor, market sources said.

"There was a lot of interest in the sale. The deal was increased in size by $150 million to accommodate orders from investors," said one ABS portfolio manager.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch, lead underwriter for the sale, was marketing the deal to investors along with co-managers Credit Suisse, Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank Securities and JPMorgan Securities this week.

The deal follows a larger-than-expected $911.8 million credit card sale from American Express Issuance Trust last week. Despite robust investor interest for securities, credit card issuers have been largely absent from the market this year amid a changing securitization landscape that has made it less attractive for some issuers.

After heading up supply in recent years, credit card securities issuance has accounted for a mere $2.9 billion of the $37 billion of ABS securities sold so far in 2010.

A tougher regulatory and legislative environment combined with new accounting rules and tighter lending standards have all worked to clamp down on credit card issuance this year.

Many bank credit card issuers have turned to other funding alternatives rather than securitization, such as the unsecured corporate debt market, while others are simply relying on their own deposit base to fund new consumer loans. (Editing by James Dalgleish)