Lawmakers call for new financing terms for boat dealers

A dozen members of the U.S. Congress delivered a letter Friday to Ben Bernanke, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, and Timothy Geithner, secretary of the U.S. Treasury calling on the two to reclassify boats and recreational vehicles as an asset class in the Fed's Term Asset-Backed Securities Lending Facility, and to hurry up.


Lowering the so-called "haircut level" — the amount of an asset's value that may not be used as collateral — would improve liquidity for boat dealers, they said.

The haircut level for an average floorplan term of three years is 13 percent.

Using TALF funds for other lending requires an asset value exclusion ranging from 5 percent for prime credit cards to 16 percent for financing automotive rental fleets.

"We write to express our collective concern that the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) is not proceeding with sufficient pace or with sufficient participation within the nonauto floorplan asset classes," the group wrote. "As members of Congress who represent many marine manufacturers and dealers we urge you to re-examine elements of the TALF program, and specifically the haircut schedule for nonauto floorplan asset-backed securities."