Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have found deep investor appetite for credit-risk transfer transactions, but their exploration of new structures may not get to the front-end tradeoff of deeper mortgage insurance for reduced MBS guaranty fees. During a panel session at last week’s secondary market conference sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association, Kevin Palmer, a Freddie vice president, said the government-sponsored enterprises launched their credit-risk transfers to reduce taxpayer exposure and distribute risk more broadly in the mortgage finance system. Fannie and Freddie have...