Nonbanks and REITs make a bid for FHLBank membership. Community banks and credit unions say that would be a mistake. Is there a middle ground?

Updates to the guide go into effect in June and July.

The heightened PMIERS capital requirements set by the GSEs when Genworth let its mortgage insurance subsidiary go public have now been satisfied.

STACRs see the return of the B-1 class for the first time since June.

Michael Seelig will serve on the board’s audit committee.

The GSEs’ regulator has backtracked on its controversial rules for commingled securities.

Almost all of the decline in combined GSE profits was due to a spike in loan-loss provisions. But while Fannie’s provisions continued to grow in the fourth quarter, Freddie’s may have peaked in the third quarter. (Includes data chart.)

Will lower FHA premiums steal market share from the GSEs? According to analysts, private mortgage insurer pricing still makes the GSEs the better execution for borrowers with credit scores over 680. But private MIs are still nervous.

The mortgage giant has introduced new valuation options as it moves away from the policy that “appraisal is a default requirement.”

Deciding whether the GSEs should use FICO or VantageScore or both turned out to be the easy part. The hard part is going to be the multiyear process of figuring out how to use the scores together.