Industry groups have once again requested federal regulators delay a new accounting standard for credit losses. The Current Expected Credit Loss standard is scheduled to be implemented on a phased-in basis beginning in January.

Commercial banks and savings institutions increased the amount of mortgage servicing rights they handle for other investors in the fourth quarter of 2018, although valuations for the asset softened. [Includes one data chart]

Retail mortgage lending remained the dominant originations channel in 2018, but it lost some luster to third-party production channels. [Includes two data charts]

Freddie updates seller guide for income assessment. Stevens joins ProxyPics.

Late last month, Bloomberg reported that Kushner Cos., the real estate investment firm owned by the family of President Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner, was in negotiations with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for as much a $1.15 billion in loans. Some facts, though, make it difficult to know if the story is accurate.

When the Federal Reserve has finally “normalized” its balance sheet, allowing much of the $4.25 trillion in Treasuries and agency securities that it acquired through quantitative easing to gradually run off, there will still be as much as $1 trillion on the ledger, according to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last week.

Last month, a pair of watchdog organizations asked the inspectors general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Department of the Treasury to investigate whether media leaks by officials at FHFA or the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency were part of an insider trading scheme.

The Current Expected Credit Losses standard, a new accounting protocol expected to go into effect in 2020, could have an outsized impact on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, a prominent Republican on the House Financial Services Committee.

The general consensus was that Mark Calabria would be easily confirmed as FHFA director. So it came as somewhat of a surprise when his nomination passed out of the committee last week on a 13- to-12, straight party-line vote.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association finally approved the uniform mortgage-backed security for delivery in the crucial to-be-announced market.