The Structured Finance Industry Group late last week published a final draft of the standards for due diligence firms to use when testing loans for compliance with the Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act disclosure rule. “The underlying premise of this documentation is to establish a best practices approach to pre-securitization testing logic that will drive the due diligence conducted by third-party review firms,” SFIG said. The RMBS 3.0 TRID Compliance Review Scope documentation addresses...

Standard & Poor’s lost a little market share in the business of rating non-mortgage ABS during the first quarter of 2016, but the firm still was the most active player in the market, according to a new ranking by Inside MBS & ABS. S&P rated 58.4 percent of the $41.42 billion of non-mortgage ABS issued in early 2016, down from its 61.5 percent share for all of last year and its 64.1 percent share back in 2014. The company’s strong suit was in vehicle-finance ABS, where it rated 64.7 percent of the market, by dollar volume. While S&P’s share was up slightly in a few categories, its stake in the credit card ABS segment fell...[Includes two data tables]

A $1.98 billion non-agency MBS issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank in April prompted interest from a wide variety of industry participants, but other big banks appear unlikely to issue similar deals, according to analysts at Moody’s Investors Service. Moody’s was one of the firms to place AAA ratings on Chase Mortgage Trust 2016-1. The deal was unique in that 74.0 percent of the 5,353 mortgages in the MBS were eligible for sale to the government-sponsored enterprises. And it was...

A $161.71 million MBS planned by Lone Star Funds backed by newly originated nonprime mortgages received an A rating this week from DBRS and Fitch Ratings. The deal is the first post-crisis nonprime MBS to receive a credit rating and it will be the largest post-crisis nonprime MBS issued to date. The rating services stressed that while the mortgages originated by Lone Star’s Caliber Home Loans are generally nonprime, the underwriting on the loans is relatively strong. However, Fitch said it capped the rating at A due to the limited nonprime performance of Caliber and Hudson Americas, the asset manager for the MBS. “As more post-crisis non-prime performance is established while upholding appropriate controls, Fitch will consider...

The so-called TRID-lock seen in the jumbo MBS market since October appears to be easing as both Redwood Trust and JPMorgan Chase have come to market with deals that include some loans with compliance problems. Before this week, only one jumbo MBS included mortgages subject to TRID, a deal from Two Harbors Investment in March. Many industry participants blamed...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac credit-risk transfer transactions have evolved since they were introduced in late 2012, according to a recent report by DBRS. The rating service analyzed Fannie’s Connecticut Avenue Securities and Freddie’s Structured Agency Credit Risk transactions and concluded that they have performed well with low delinquencies. DBRS attributed the strong performance to “prudent underwriting, the GSEs’ solid seller and servicer approval process and ...

Moody’s Investors Service assigned its first “Green Bond Assessment” last week to an MBS backed by Dutch mortgages that were selected on the basis of the underlying properties’ energy efficiency. The rating service said it expects future “green transactions” from issuers such as financial institutions and governments. “Green bonds” are securities that raise capital for use in financing or refinancing projects and activities with specific climate or environmental sustainability purposes. Moody’s said green bonds include securitizations collateralized by projects or assets whose cash flows provide the first source of repayment, debt obligations with direct recourse to issuers and project finance or revenue bonds. Green Storm 2016 B.V. received...

Redwood Trust is preparing to issue a $344.89 million jumbo mortgage-backed security next week, according to a presale report from Kroll Bond Rating Agency. Most of the mortgages in the planned deal are subject to the TRID mortgage disclosure rule. The combined Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau took effect in early October. Since then, only one jumbo MBS has included TRID loans ...

FHA originations rose significantly in the first quarter of 2016 from the same period last year even as VA loan production decreased slightly, according to an analysis of Ginnie Mae data. Lenders delivered $54.4 billion of FHA-insured loans to Ginnie Mae for securitization during the first three months, up 36.2 percent from the previous year. In contrast, the volume of VA loans securitized over the same period, $35.0 billion, fell 1.5 percent compared to the same period a year ago. A strong purchase-mortgage market drove FHA activity from January to March. The reduction in FHA’s annual insurance premium in January 2015 continued to have an impact on FHA’s purchase-loan market share. In 2015, FHA purchase originations accounted for $151.0 billion of the estimated $881.0 billion in total purchase originations (conventional and government single-family forward originations), according to ... [ 2 charts ]

A California-based mortgage lender and six senior executives have agreed to pay $12.7 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission to resolve allegations they schemed to defraud investors in the sale of residential mortgage-backed securities with a Ginnie Mae guarantee. The SEC complaint alleged that, from March 2011 to March 2015, Ginnie Mae issuer First Mortgage Corp. and its top executives pulled current performing loans out of Ginnie Mae MBS. The issuer falsely claimed that the loans were delinquent so that it could recycle them as newly issued MBS and sell them at a profit. FMC allegedly issued Ginnie Mae MBS prospectuses with false and misleading information by using a Ginnie Mae rule that allowed issuers to repurchase seriously delinquent loans. In addition, the SEC complaint alleged that FMC deliberately delayed depositing checks from borrowers who had been behind on ...