Agency single-family MBS represents a huge share of the asset-securitization market. So when Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae turn in a weak quarter, it drives down total issuance.
Ginnie Mae has no plans to reduce the number of issuers it oversees or raise capital standards for servicers, but in an interview with Inside MBS & ABS this week, Executive Vice President Michael Bright made it clear he’s worried about liquidity – a lot.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will begin issuing the long-awaited uniform MBS on June 3, 2019, but the Federal Housing Finance Agency strongly urges the industry to not delay getting ready.
Two of the nine MBS issuers that Ginnie Mae singled out for unusual MBS prepayment speeds reportedly have been restricted from the agency’s multi-issuer MBS pools.
As rates continued to rise early this year, the average daily trading volume in agency MBS topped $239.2 billion in February, the best showing in at least 14 months, according to figures compiled by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.
Certain types of MBS and ABS appear to have some wiggle room regarding risk-retention requirements. According to industry lawyers, many single-asset/single-borrower (SASB) commercial MBS can be structured to avoid risk retention and the rules might not apply to certain esoteric ABS.
Barclays Capital and its affiliates will pay $2.0 billion to settle claims brought by the U.S. Department of Justice related to the company’s underwriting and issuance of non-agency residential MBS before the financial crisis.
Morningstar Credit Ratings announced the withdrawal last week of unsolicited ratings the firm had placed on some non-agency commercial MBS. While regulators have encouraged the publication of unsolicited ratings, investor demand has been tepid.
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