Moody's Investors Service has assigned provisional ratings to A$200 million in notes to be issued by Liberty Funding Pty Ltd. The transaction will be called (in its shorter format) Liberty Series 2015-1 Auto, and is Liberty's eighth asset backed securitisation to be secured by car loans. The collateral portfolio includes both prime and "non-conforming consumer obligors" located in Australia, secured by motor vehicles and originated by Liberty Financial. In broad terms, Liberty Series 2015-1 Auto replicates structures seen in previous ABS transactions from Liberty.One difference between this and the previous auto ABS from Liberty in 2013 is that this transaction features a short term (P)P-1 (sf) tranche, with a legal final maturity of 12 months from issuance. This tranche represents 14 per cent of the total issuance - that is, $28 million. The other tranches follow a similar pattern to earlier Liberty ABS deals, with the highest rated longer-dated tranche, the $118 million Class A2 notes, assigned a preliminary rating of (P)Aaa (sf) and the next lowest tranche, the $16 million Class B notes, assigned a (P)Aa2 (sf) rating.The other four lower rated and unrated tranches account for a total $38 million in notes, respectively.Other notable features of this Liberty transaction include: the use of a prefunding period, whereby Liberty Funding Pty Ltd will issue notes up to $200 million, based on the initial pool of $170 million and then may originate loans up to the prefunding amount of $30 million, which can be sold into the trust; a guarantee fee reserve account that is initially unfunded but builds up by trapping excess spread until it reaches two per cent of the current outstanding note balance, to meet losses on the loans and charge-offs against the notes, or to cover any liquidity shortfalls; the use of a two-tiered funding structure, with notes issued by Secure Funding Pty Ltd, as Trustee, to be subscribed to by Liberty Funding, another special purpose vehicle -  Liberty Funding will then issue its own notes (identical to the notes they have subscribed to) leaving Secure Funding to collect and pass through all income and principal to Liberty Funding, which will distribute those funds to noteholders.And while just over 20 per cent of the portfolio is secured by loans to borrowers with "prior adverse credit history", and Moody's said it considers these types of "non-conforming obligors" to have a higher level of risk than prime obligors, this negative feature of the transaction is mitigated to a degree as the ratings agency considers motor vehicle loans "exhibit less pro-cyclical default patterns and, on average, higher recovery rates", and are therefore less risky than other asset classes.