Fitch Ratings has updated its criteria for non-agency MBS, making changes to its standards for representations and warranties, due diligence and originator reviews to better determine credit risk for new issues. Three separate reports released last week revise existing criteria the rating agency created in 2008. “Originator reviews, loan-level due diligence results, and the quality of representations and war-ranties to a transaction are key elements of ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issued $154.95 billion in single-family mortgage-backed securities during the second quarter of 2011, a 40.6 percent drop from the first three months of the year.The recent April-June cycle represented the second straight quarterly decline in business volume since the fourth quarter 2010 surge when the two GSEs issued $331.5 billion in MBS.

An official from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York defended the joint agency proposed rule on risk retention, claiming that it doesn’t do anything to block incentives to securitize. The proposed rule has been widely criticized by Wall Street and other financial institutions, which have urged the agencies to start over again with a new proposal. “I don’t understand how you would get...

It was a bad litigation week for MBS issuers after a federal regulator and a federal judge filed lawsuits and certified a class action, respectively, on behalf of institutional investors that lost billions of dollars when the collateral underlying the securities dropped in value. On June 20, the National Credit Union Administration, acting as liquidating agent for five failed credit unions, filed lawsuits against JPMorgan Securities and RBS Securities for allegedly misrepresenting the risks of MBS investments and systematically disregarding underwriting guidelines. The NCUA is seeking to recover more than $800 billion in MBS losses that led to...

Four more executives have been handed down jail terms for their role in a $2.9 billion fraud scheme that defrauded Freddie Mac, among others, and contributed to the failures of Colonial Bank and Taylor, Bean & Whitaker.

New federal restrictions on mortgage broker compensation will likely add momentum to the shift away from wholesale mortgage production programs and ultimately dampen MBS prepayment speeds, according to an analysis by Barclays Capital. Most major primary market lenders have been moving away from the broker market since the housing sector began to crumble in 2007. According to Inside Mortgage Finance, an affiliated newslet-ter, the broker share of new mortgage originations peaked in 2005 at 31.3 percent of primary market lending. Between 2005 and 2007, brokers accounted...

The supply of single-family MBS outstanding in the market declined again in the first quarter of 2011, hitting its lowest level since the third quarter of 2007, according to an Inside MBS & ABS analysis of new agency data. Single-family MBS totaled $6.564 trillion as of the end of March, down 0.4 percent from the end of 2010. The single-family MBS market peaked in the third quarter of 2009 at $6.981 trillion and has been in steady decline since then. That’s largely because the supply of home loan debt has been declining since early 2008 as house values have eroded, cash-out refinance activity has...[includes one data chart]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency last week issued a final rule regarding the FHLBanks which limits the Banks’ mortgage-backed securities holdings, especially non-agency MBS. In its notice, published in the May 20 Federal Register, the FHFA said it is re-organizing and re-adopting existing investment regulations that were previously issued by the Federal Housing Finance Board. The final rule will retain the Finance Board’s Financial Management Policy provision limiting MBS holdings to 300 percent of a Bank’s capital. “Contrary to suggestions that the 300 percent of capital limit was inflexible and outdated, FHFA believes the limit reasonably serves to control Bank investment activity that does not...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities remained a preferred investment for the Federal Home Loan Banks during the first quarter of 2011 with only a negligible decrease from the previous quarter, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside The GSEs based on data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.Meanwhile, Ginnie Mae securities continued to grow in popularity within the FHLBank system during the first three months of this year. GSE MBS still accounted for 66.7 percent of combined FHLBank MBS portfolios. The Finance Agency’s data do not separately break out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac volume or share. Ginnie MBS grew by... [Includes one data chart]

U.S. banks are generally more liquid than Basel III liquidity standards would suggest thanks in large part to the treatment of banks' large portfolios of GSE-related securities, according to Fitch Ratings.