There are signs of trouble ahead for the subprime auto ABS sector that warrant closer attention to the financial health of that class of borrowers, but it looks like the rising risk is contained, according to some research reports published this week by a pair of Wall Street analysts. In one of the reports, Wells Fargo Securities analysts John McElravey and Ryan Brinkoetter warned of the implications for the fiscal soundness of the borrowers involved. They reviewed the total and voluntary prepayment rates of the major subprime auto ABS issuers, and calculated the average prepayment curves by deal age for issuer and vintage over the 2013-2016 time period. “Much of the analytical focus in auto ABS has been...
Commercial banks and thrifts continued to have modest interest in holding non-mortgage ABS during the first quarter of 2017, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis. The banking industry held $123.43 billion of ABS in its held-to-maturity and available-for-sale investment portfolios at the end of March. That was down 0.3 percent from December. The overall supply of ABS outstanding, excluding collateralized debt obligations, fell...[Includes two data tables]
Credit Suisse this week issued a $91.2 million non-agency MBS backed by seasoned FHA mortgages. CSMC 2017-FHA1 marked the first non-agency securitization of re-performing FHA mortgages since 2010. The deal received an A rating from DBRS and an A1 rating from Moody’s Investors Service with subordination of 16.50 percent on the senior tranche. Moody’s cited a number of credit “challenges,” including uncertainty about FHA insurance payouts for liquidated mortgages, insufficient information on loan modifications and weak representations and warranties. The mortgages in the deal have...
TD Bank is by far the biggest bank investor in card ABS, and in ABS overall, but its $12.71 billion portfolio of card ABS was down some $702.6 million from December.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is destined for major changes whether they come via the federal courts or Congress, but which one has the bigger impact on the agency’s future is a question that seems to divide industry attorneys. In an analysis, Jerome Walker, a bank regulatory compliance attorney with the Duane Morris law firm in New York, writes it is likely that courts are a greater threat to the CFPB at this point than Congress. Although the House Financial Services Committee has approved legislation that would make major changes at the bureau, the legislation’s future in the Senate is uncertain. “Recent court cases, however, have proven...
The Federal Housing Finance Agency wants to know how Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks can better help borrowers with limited English proficiency (LEP) throughout the entire mortgage cycle, from lending to servicing. With the numbers of individuals not able to speak English fluently growing in the U.S., the FHFA wants to learn more about some of the procedures and tools that originators, servicers, and other parties in the mortgage lending process currently use to help LEP borrowers. To better understand the challenges, the FHFA issued...
Almost every week it seems like a lender launches a digital mortgage process allowing for loan applications to be received and processed online effortlessly and efficiently. However, according to a recent survey of lenders, a number of barriers stand in the way of digital mortgages. Lenders cited various technology issues, costs and difficulties getting loan officers to change behavior as barriers to digitizing the mortgage process. Some 73 lenders participated in the survey administered by the Strategic Mortgage Finance Group earlier this year. The top barrier to digital mortgage offerings was...
With interest rates projected to rise, lenders are putting an increased emphasis on purchase mortgages. A little-used feature in post-crisis originations could help boost purchase-mortgage originations: temporary interest rate buydowns. A temporary buydown can help increase a lender’s “market potential” by offering borrowers lower initial payments and the stability of predictable payment increases, according to Freddie Mac. Temporary buydowns generally last...
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