The official watchdog of the Federal Housing Finance Agency has pointedly suggested that the GSE regulator direct Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine whether or by how much the two companies were swindled out of billions of dollars as a result of banks’ alleged manipulation of a key interest rate and then determine how to recoup those losses, in court if necessary. A recent unpublished memo by the FHFA’s Office of Inspector General urged the Finance Agency to prepare to file suit against the banks involved in setting the London Interbank Offered Rate after an analysis of the GSEs’ published financial statements and publicly available historical interest data concluded that Fannie and Freddie may have suffered more than $3 billion in losses due to LIBOR manipulation.

Proponents of creating a covered bond market in the U.S., as well as a potential competitor for the Federal Home Loan Bank System, are hopeful that Canada’s recent establishment of a covered bond legal framework will lend legislative momentum to push such a bill through Congress this year. A spokesman for Rep. Scott Garrett, R-NJ, told Inside The GSEs this week that the chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises will re-file his bill, the U.S. Covered Bond Act, in the near future. “With the federal government backing over 90 percent of the mortgage market, we must seek creative ways to enable the private sector to provide additional mortgage, consumer, commercial, and other types of credit,” Garrett said in a statement. “I look forward to working with my colleagues in the House and Senate to ensure we pass covered bond legislation in the 113th Congress.”

The White House is once again toying with the idea of HARP 3.0 - using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to refinance underwater non-agency loans, giving the GSEs leeway to charge higher guaranty fees for securitizing these mortgages, and waiving mortgage insurance requirements, according to industry officials who’ve been briefed on the plan. However, such an effort – modeled on the GSE’s Home Affordable Refinancing Program – would require Congressional approval and is already meeting with industry resistance. Also, many House Republicans are not happy with the thought. “While we all recognize the need to help as many underwater borrowers as possible, I do not think any further expansion of the GSE charter to originate higher risk, underwater loans makes sense and only shifts risk from the private sector onto the U.S. taxpayer,” said David Stevens, president and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association. “Based on past experience, the GSEs are not experts at pricing these kinds of risks.”

As more names are thrown into the “Who Will Succeed DeMarco at FHFA” sweepstakes, the question increasingly being is asked is this: which candidate will placate Congressional Republicans? Republicans, so far, have held united against allowing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to write down the principal on underwater mortgages as a loan modification tool. Edward DeMarco, the acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, of course, has shot down the idea numerous times.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, at the direction of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, are moving forward together to develop industry-wide data standards, according to updates from both GSEs. A component of the FHFA-mandated Uniform Mortgage Data Program, the Uniform Mortgage Servicing Dataset will define a standard dataset that will facilitate data exchanges between servicers and investors with standardized definitions, formats and valid data values. “The adoption of an industry standard data model will provide long-term benefits to servicers, GSEs and the mortgage industry,” noted the GSEs’ update published Dec. 12.

Heavy refinance volume pushed both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac single-family mortgage securitization up appreciably during the fourth quarter of 2012, helping to close out a post-crisis record year for GSE mortgage-backed security business, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis.Fannie and Freddie issued $352.51 billion in single-family MBS during the fourth quarter, a 5.2 percent increase from the previous period and the biggest quarter in over three years.

Depository institutions managed to trim the volume of mortgage loans they serviced for other investors during the third quarter of 2012, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call report data...[includes one data chart]

Investment banking and advisory firms continue to talk about private equity money eyeing the mortgage servicing market, but so far no one has made a major plunge. Sterling Partners, a Chicago-area equity fund that hired Phoenix Capital’s Michael Lau back in the fall, plans to invest several hundred million in MSR, according to industry advisors familiar with the firm’s plans. Sterling declined to comment on the subject. Lau, an executive vice president at Phoenix ...

Mortgage banking profitability soared to record levels in the third quarter, but some industry analysts say the boom may begin to taper off in 2013.The surge in mortgage banking income during 2012 came from increased secondary marketing gains as the spread between primary market rates and yields on agency mortgage-backed securities widened to historic levels.

Most consumers have a favorable view of debt protection services for their mortgage and credit card debt obligations, despite the occasional news report of abuses in the sector, according to a new study from officials at the Federal Reserve, based on data from the Consumer Credit Industry Association.“Consumer attitudes among purchasers have not changed from the high levels of favorable views of users in the past,” said the study, which was authored by Thomas Durkin and Gregory Elliehausen...