Disclosure of findings from third-party due diligence on MBS and ABS are set to go from a few paragraphs in a rating report to a detailed form with certification from the due diligence firm, thanks to standards established by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The standards take effect for deals that price June 15 or later. Within five days before the first sale in an offering that will receive a rating, the findings and conclusions of any third-party due diligence report obtained by the issuer or underwriter must be disclosed in Form ABS-15G or the rating report. The disclosure requirement applies to private placements along with SEC-registered deals. “Our biggest challenge now is educating...

Lenders and investors are getting more comfortable with loans that don’t meet the qualified-mortgage standard, according to industry participants. A non-agency mortgage-backed security backed primarily by non-QMs could be issued as soon as this year. Chris Haspel, a partner and head of capital markets at Fenway Summer, whose Ethos Lending is originating non-QMs, said the “fear level” among rating services and warehouse lenders regarding non-QMs has ...

Separate efforts by the Treasury Department and the Structured Finance Industry Group aimed at attracting investors to new non-agency mortgage-backed securities continue to progress, according to industry analysts. The Treasury is working to facilitate a benchmark non-agency MBS while SFIG continues to develop standards as part of Project RMBS 3.0. Eric Kaplan, a managing director at Shellpoint Partners and leader of Project RMBS 3.0, said ...

Potential investors in jumbo mortgage-backed securities continue to push issuers to make significant changes to the way the market operates. “How is this ever going to be a $300 billion market if everybody has to look at reps and warrants on a deal-by-deal basis?” said Allan Berliant, a portfolio manager at Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo. “There needs to be a streamlined industry standard.” Berliant and many others called for changes at the ABS Vegas conference ...

With new consumer disclosures from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau set to take effect in August and lenders still grappling with the ability-to-repay rule, due diligence is likely to continue to be a high priority for loans included in jumbo mortgage-backed securities, according to industry participants. Only a handful of jumbo MBS issued in recent years have included third-party due diligence for fewer than 100 percent of the loans. Issuers have been ...

Legal settlements that involve loss mitigation are one of many factors keeping investors away from new jumbo mortgage-backed securities. “Until that stops, it’s going to be hard to rebuild trust,” said James Grady, a managing director and head of the structured finance sector team at Deutsche Asset Management, at the recent ABS Vegas conference. A number of settlements between banks and the Residential MBS Working Group have mandated ...

Proponents of the non-agency MBS market continue to work on initiatives to revive the market, with progress somewhat slow but steady. The Treasury Department and the Structured Finance Industry Group are facilitating separate efforts to entice investors to buy new non-agency MBS. At the ABS Vegas conference sponsored by the Structured Finance Industry Group and Information Management Network this week, Olga Gorodetsky, a senior policy advisor at the Treasury, said there’s no timeframe for when the benchmark non-agency MBS the Treasury is trying to facilitate might be issued. “It will be market driven,” she said. Gorodetsky said...[Includes one data chart]

Standard & Poor’s emerged as the top rating service in both non-agency MBS and non-mortgage ABS securitizations in 2014, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking. S&P rated $8.91 billion of non-agency MBS last year, or 25.4 percent of total issuance. Rating information is not available on most scratch-and-dent transactions and re-securitizations that are typically issued as private placements. S&P’s market share was down from 40.0 percent of non-agency MBS issued in 2013, when there were more transactions with multiple ratings. DBRS, which reports its ratings on re-securitizations, actually was involved...[Includes two data charts]

The Department of Justice and other allied parties this week reached a $1.375 billion settlement with Standard & Poor’s to resolve allegations that the firm’s investment-grade ratings misled investors into buying securities backed by badly underwritten mortgages. The agreement resolves the DOJ’s 2013 lawsuit against S&P and its parent, McGraw Hill Financial Inc., along with the suits filed by 19 states and the District of Columbia. Each of the lawsuits alleges that investors incurred substantial losses on residential MBS and collateralized debt obligations that carried S&P’s ‘AAA’ ratings, which effectively masked their true credit risks. S&P was accused...

Issuance of jumbo MBS and ABS has grown since 2010, but pending Federal Reserve actions regarding interest rates could stop the trend this year, according to industry analysts. The Fed is expected by many to increase interest rates for the first time in years, perhaps as soon as the end of the second quarter of 2015. Standard & Poor’s warned last week that interest rate hikes could threaten the still-rebounding structured finance market. “The Fed’s normalization of monetary policy could create...