RBS Securities has agreed to pay $120 million to the state of Connecticut to resolve an investigation into its underwriting of residential MBS shortly before the 2008 collapse of the financial markets. CT Attorney General George Jepsen and Department of Banking Commissioner Jorge Perez announced the agreement, which, they said, is the largest single settlement in Connecticut’s history. It also ends a four-year state investigation into RBS’s securities underwriting and due diligence practices. At issue were...

Non-agency MBS investors looked to the practices of the government-sponsored enterprises when establishing the standards for a deal agent, according to Alessandro Pagani, a portfolio manager and head of securitized assets at Loomis Sayles. “The GSEs were very effective in enforcing their rights as owners of the collateral; they had access to information and real enforcement power to put back loans that needed to be put back and direct servicers,” he said at the recent ABS East conference produced by Information Management Network. The Deal Agent Committee released...

Annaly Capital Management, the nation’s largest real estate investment trust specializing in the residential MBS market, continues to take a close look at one of its more recent acquisitions, Pingora Loan Servicing, with no word yet on its plans for the unit. Annaly took control of Pingora this past summer when it officially closed on the purchase of Hatteras Financial, the parent of the servicer. Before the purchase, Annaly had...

The post-crisis market environment that fueled the mortgage loan buyback dynamic continues to improve, and with it, the business relationships between lenders, investors and the government-sponsored enterprises. However, the repurchase and indemnification phenomenon has not gone away and is unlikely to do so for the foreseeable future. That means market participants need a comprehensive strategy to limit their exposure to litigation and, when that fails, to restrict the damage that does ensue, according to some top industry attorneys. This may be particularly important for correspondent lenders. “In order to go ahead and get a good perspective for what your company’s potential risk is, how do you go...

JPMorgan Chase and Redwood Trust remained the only two active issuers of prime non-agency mortgage-backed securities as of the end of the third quarter of 2016, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. A total of $4.07 billion in prime non-agency MBS was issued during the third quarter of 2016, more than five times the volume issued in the previous quarter. However, through three quarters this year, prime MBS issuance ... [Includes one data chart]

The sample deal-agent agreement released by non-agency industry participants in September aims to provide a template for a third party that would protect investors in future non-agency mortgage-backed securities. Some industry participants warn that there are still more issues that need to be addressed, including a potential overlap in the duties for a deal agent and tasks traditionally handled by trustees and master servicers. At the recent ABS East conference produced by ...

Ginnie Mae rode a surging purchase-mortgage market and heavy refinance activity to new production records during the third quarter of 2016. The agency issued a whopping $145.14 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities during the third quarter, according to an Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of MBS disclosures. That figure is based on pool-level disclosures that reveal exact principal balance amounts and it includes securities backed by FHA home-equity conversion mortgages. The data in the table below are based on truncated loan-level disclosures and do not include HECM activity. New Ginnie MBS issuance in the third quarter was up 15.7 percent from the previous quarter. Ginnie MBS production set three consecutive monthly records during the third quarter, culminating in a huge $52.46 billion month in September. Purchase-mortgage activity was the key driver, but the ... [ 4 charts ]

Requiring an undercapitalized issuer to repurchase uninsured performing mortgages out of a mortgage-backed securities pool could increase risk to the federal government, warned Ginnie Mae. Responding to an adverse audit report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of the Inspector General, Ginnie said that while it generally accepts the IG’s recommendations, forcing an undercapitalized issuer to buy out performing loans and either hold them in portfolio or sell them at a substantial loss would put the government at greater risk. “This is something we need to be alert to in certain cases,” the agency said. According to the report, Ginnie improperly allowed more than $49 million of single-family mortgages with terminated insurance to remain in its MBS pools for more than one year without obtaining FHA coverage. The IG warned Ginnie could be on the ...

A boom in ABS backed by unsecured consumer loans requires closer scrutiny, according to analysts at Fitch Ratings. Marketplace lenders have boosted the issuance of such ABS in recent years, though the rating service warned that deal performance is difficult to predict. “Many firms in this space have legitimate value propositions and apparent technological advantages,” Fitch said. “However, they have yet to prove their underwriting merit.” Since September 2013, at least 31 ABS totaling $4.60 billion backed by consumer loans from marketplace lenders have been issued...

The Department of Veterans Affairs is drafting a new policy to address ongoing confusion about its Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan program and ease investor anxiety. The uncertainty among VA lenders stems from the treatment of IRRRLs under the VA’s interim final rule defining what constitutes a “qualified mortgage.” That rule took...