Changes to underwriting standards and home price appreciation helped investors in non-agency MBS largely avoid losses during the pandemic. By comparison, cumulative losses on subprime MBS during the financial crisis of 2008 hit nearly 20%.

Several classes of ABS have performed better than expected during the pandemic, including oil and gas assets, airline loyalty programs and retail credit cards.

Although only $4.5 billion of TALF funding was requested during the facility’s pandemic-related course, the Federal Reserve program is credited with stabilizing the ABS market.

Issuers are still stocking non-agency MBS with GSE-eligible mortgages for investment properties. Lenders and issuers are considering their options following a suspension of limitations placed on the GSEs.

Fannie Mae will resume credit-risk transfer program after FHFA proposed capital relief for the transactions. Investors look forward to new opportunities.

The definitions used by non-agency MBS lenders and issuers aren’t consistent and many terms haven’t been updated since 2009. The MISMO and the SFA are separately working on setting new standards.

MBS trading volumes fell in August, marking the lowest reading of the year. A summer respite or something else?

Will the new, forward-looking, credit-sensitive version of the Secured Overnight Financing Rate serve as the index rate for credit-risk transfer and MBS transactions?

Securitization issuers should carefully monitor and mitigate potential cyberattacks as a way to help preserve the credit quality of a structured finance transaction, S&P said in a recent report.

After a lapse at the beginning of the pandemic, commercial PACE lending and the associated ABS offerings have grown steadily.