The Inspector General of the Federal Housing Finance Agency has produced and posted his own video that serves as part introduction and part public outreach for tips about potential waste, fraud or abuse at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks. Located on the home page of the agency’s website – fhfaoig.gov – and titled “Welcome Video for FHFA-OIG,” the 2½ minute video, of unmistakably modest production value, features Inspector General Steve Linick speaking directly to the camera with an American flag mural in the background.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has tabled – for now – a plan being pushed by Fannie Mae to lower force-placed insurance rates by as much as 30 percent, bringing in a group of insurance firms that are not traditional players in the market, industry officials who were briefed on the matter said. These officials, speaking under the condition their names not be published, said Fannie Executive Vice President Terry Edwards was heavily pushing the plan, but in the end the FHFA decided to delay action and set up a study group to look into the matter further. The names of the insurers that Fannie was working with were not released.

While Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s conservator deliberates whether or when to roll out its proposed state-level guaranty fee increase, industry observers say that the Federal Housing Finance Agency has plotted a course for significant, if gradual, g-fee hikes for the two GSEs. Last summer, the Finance Agency announced a 10 basis point rise in g-fees on single-family mortgages effective Nov. 1, 2012, for government-sponsored enterprise loans sold for cash and starting Dec. 1 for GSE loans exchanged for MBS. The November/December guaranty fee increase follows a similar 10bp hike the two GSEs implemented on April 1, 2012.

Although the behemoths of the mortgage banking industry continued to dominate sales to the GSEs in 2012, both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw significantly more business from lenders outside the top tier, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis. For all of 2012, the top five sellers accounted for 48.9 percent of single-family mortgages sold to Fannie and Freddie, a substantial decline from the 58.0 percent aggregate market share of the top five sellers back in 2011.

Fannie Mae announced last week that the company’s top finance executive will “retire from the company” by this summer, marking another top executive departure from the GSE. Susan McFarland, executive vice president and chief financial officer, will transition out of the company by no later than June 30 following the appointment of a new CFO, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The filing did not name a successor.

Two Democrat Senators have re-introduced their refinance bill that would authorize a one-year extension of the Home Affordable Refinance Program while easing other qualifying criteria for HARP borrowers. Dubbed HARP 3.0 in some quarters, the Responsible Homeowner Refinancing Act of 2013, the bill by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, -- co-sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-CA, -- would expand HARP eligibility by providing equal access to streamlined refinancing under HARP, waive loan-to-value ratio requirements and prohibit Fannie and Freddie from charging upfront fees to refi any loan they guarantee. The new draft of the Menendez-Boxer, S. 249, includes a few technical corrections and would extend HARP for an additional 12 months beyond its scheduled expiration of Dec. 31, 2013.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is keeping a close eye on large-scale servicing transfers because it is concerned about capacity issues that might arise from smaller players taking down portfolios that significantly increase their overall processing volume. According to industry advisors and servicing executives familiar with the issue, FHFA played a key role in Bank of America’s recent sale of $306 billion of mortgage servicing rights to Nationstar Mortgage and Walter Investment Management Corp. One source familiar with the deal said FHFA asked that Nationstar not take down the entire portfolio and that it be broken up into more than one piece. A spokeswoman for FHFA declined to comment on the matter to Inside The GSEs.

Bruce Witherell, a former top executive of Freddie Mac, has emerged as a key player in the new mortgage investing real estate investment trust being launched by Cerberus. Witherell, who was a chief operating officer at Freddie from 2009 to 2011, is chairman of Cerberus Mortgage Capital, a real estate investment trust that hopes to raise at least $150 million through an initial public offering. At Freddie, Witherell was in charge of day-to-day operations of three lines of business: single-family, multifamily and capital markets.