Even as securitization market watchers in both the U.S. and the European Union attempt to reconcile each other’s new and evolving risk-retention rules, experts warn that an obscure provision of the Dodd-Frank Act could complicate...

A modest gain in the issuance of securities backed by auto financing and a boost from the student loan sector helped push total non-mortgage ABS issuance up 5.4 percent in the first quarter, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside MBS & ABS. The ABS market generated... [Includes three data charts]

Private capital could help resolve the foreclosure crisis if servicers and investors can agree to programs allowing the sale of distressed mortgages out of non-agency MBS pools, according to Jordan Dorchuck, vice president and chief legal officer at American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc. Dorchuck outlined a proposal to allow...

The Securities and Exchange Commission this week proposed a new method for determining whether non-agency MBS will enjoy certain federal exemptions without relying on credit ratings. The SEC and other agencies in recent years have been gradually eliminating references to credit ratings in a variety of regulations affecting...

Representatives of the securitization industry are raising concerns that some key aspects of the risk-retention proposed rule that federal bank regulators are working on might bring the secondary mortgage market to a grinding halt, and are urging regulators to remove or clarify some proposals. Much of the concern has to do with...

Bank of America successfully turned back a class-action lawsuit filed by disgruntled investors in Countrywide MBS, but new cases stemming from the collapse of the non-agency mortgage market continue to be filed. According to Judge Mariana Pfaelzer’s dismissal order in the U.S. District Court of the Central District of California, BofA and its...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2010 continued to take a beating from their MBS guarantees on high-risk mortgages, but the performance of these loans did improve somewhat last year, according to a new report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Since the beginning of 2008, the two government-sponsored enterprises have burned through...

Federal banking regulators extended the comment period for their controversial risk-retention proposal to Aug.1 after meeting with the American Bankers Association, the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Association of Realtors and consumer groups last Thursday. The proposed rule generally would require sponsors of asset-backed securities to hold on to a minimum 5 percent of the credit risk of the assets underlying their securities. Among the most controversial aspects of the proposal is its...

The chairman of the House Budget Committee said this week that a full and transparent accounting of the cost to taxpayers of the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is the first, best step to determine how to wind down the two government-sponsored enterprises.During a hearing on taxpayer exposure in the housing markets relating to Fannie, Freddie and the FHA, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-WI, took aim at the White House’s plan for a post-GSE mortgage market. “While the Treasury Department has put forward a ‘framework for reform,’ the Obama administration still...

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority last week fined Credit Suisse Securities and Merrill Lynch for alleged misrepresentation of delinquency data and inadequate supervision of subprime residential MBS that ended up misleading investors about the performance of pool assets. “FINRA found that in 2006, Credit Suisse misrepresented the historical delinquency rates for 21 subprime RMBS it underwrote and sold,” the independent regulator said in a statement. “Although Credit Suisse knew...