The uniformity once seen across rating services in their assessments of specific tranches of residential MBS has become a lot less common in recent years. The trend prompted Fitch Ratings to raise concerns about “rating inflation,” as competitors have at times been more lenient in their assessments.
Another piece of the regulatory jigsaw puzzle fell into place this week for the complex effort to create a uniform MBS for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to issue in the to-be-announced market.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continued to report declining balances in their retained mortgage portfolios during the second quarter – with a few wrinkles. [Includes one chart.]
Ocwen Financial Corporation is no longer in danger of losing its Ginnie Mae issuer status after the agency earlier this month officially announced its concerns over the specialty servicer’s problems with state regulators are resolved. Ocwen, a publicly traded Florida corporation, disclosed in a new filing that, based on information it provided to Ginnie Mae regarding the resolution of state cease-and-desist orders issued by a coalition of state banking regulators, the agency considers the issue to be concluded. In April last year, 30 state mortgage regulators issued cease-and-desist orders to prevent Ocwen from servicing loans within their jurisdictions. The servicer was accused of substandard loan servicing that violated state and applicable federal laws The orders generally prohibited Ocwen from acquiring new mortgage servicing rights, originating or acquiring new mortgage loans for which Ocwen would be the ...