Freddie Mac’s vice president of single-family business transformation is one of five industry innovators honored by the Mortgage Bankers Association with an MBA Insights Tech All-Star Award recognizing industry leaders who have made outstanding contributions in mortgage technology.

Small lending organizations, including the Community Home Lenders Association and Community Mortgage Lenders of America, urged the Federal Housing Finance Agency to suspend the upcoming Treasury sweep of GSE profits. After fourth-quarter earnings, the GSEs plan to pay the Treasury $20 billion per the preferred stock purchase agreement. A March 23 letter from CHLA, CMLA and six consumer and civil rights groups pled with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and specifically asked FHFA Director Mel Watt to “exercise its discretion under the preferred stock purchase agreement to suspend the dividend payment on their senior preferred stock this month.” The groups, like others in the industry, are concerned about the GSEs’ declining capital buffer that will plummet to zero on Jan. 1, 2018.

Moody’s Investors Service said GSE reform proposals could have unintended consequences on different market segments. In a report released this week it noted that there’s no shortage of proposals on the table and some may have a larger impact than planned. The impact of many would seem straightforward at a high level, according to the ratings firm, but they could have unintended consequences in practice. Proposals range from winding down the GSEs without an explicit replacement to winding them down and providing other entities with access to the federal catastrophic risk insurance, to re-privatizing them but with tighter regulations. The report looks at possible impacts from the broad range of reforms being proposed and the...

For the 2017 examination cycle, the Federal Housing Finance Agency recently issued an advisory bulletin for new classifications of adverse findings for the GSEs and the Federal Home Loan Banks. Three designated classifications were established to help examiners define the issues more effectively with hopes of a faster remediation plan. When communicating adverse examination finds to the regulated entities and Office of Finance, the FHFA said the examiners will classify them as either “matters requiring attention, recommendations or violations.” MRAs are broken down into two separate categories: critical supervisory matters and deficiencies. The difference boils down to the nature and severity of the issues requiring corrective action, according to the bulletin.

Member institutions of the Federal Home Loan Bank system had outstanding advances of $563.3 billion at Dec. 31, a quarterly increase of 4.0 percent, according to an analysis by Inside The GSEs. But, the year-over-year increase was greater with a 13.8 percent growth from the fourth quarter of 2015 when advances were at $495.0 billion. JP Morgan Chase continues to lead among borrowers with $79.5 billion worth in advances, the same as the previous quarter. Chase was followed by Wells Fargo, which reported $77.1 billion in advances, up 12.3 percent from the previous quarter. Wells had the largest quarterly advance increase among the top five borrowers.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency issued an interim rule last week that changed some of the components of its Freedom of Information Act regulation, including the fee categories. The interim rule gives notice about the circumstances in which the FHFA can extend its response time to the FOIA request and tells when it should notify the person requesting the information about their right to seek dispute resolution services. In the new FOIA rule, the agency is required to provide a minimum of 90 days for requestors to file an administrative appeal and must notify requesters about available dispute resolution services.

The Federal Home Loan Bank System increased its earnings by 6 percent in the fourth quarter and saw an 18.7 percent increase for all of 2016. Earnings rose in the last three months of the year to $913 million, from $861 million in the third quarter, rounding out the year with a net income total of $3.408 billion. The FHLBank Office of Finance noted that the quarterly net income increase was primarily due to higher gains on derivatives and hedging activities. Moreover, higher gains on litigation settlements helped grow both the quarterly and yearly increase. Additionally, the yearly earnings growth was due to gains on trading securities, partially offset by lower gains on derivatives and hedging activities, said the OF.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is reviewing individual members of the Federal Home Loan Banks to help gauge their level of support to the community as part of their membership requirement. This includes making sure those banks are lending to first-time homebuyers.Every two years the FHFA reviews FHLBank members and invites the public to comment on how they help support their communities. Nonprofit housing developers, along with community and advocacy groups, are asked to submit comments to the FHFA by March 31.In order to maintain access to long-term advances, the banks must meet the community support requirements and criteria established by the FHFA.This means that the FHFA will examine the...

The Federal Home Loan Banks Office of Finance announced changes this week to some of their debt programs and said they will allow more securities dealers to participate in their diversity and inclusion program. The FHLBank is planning to incorporate other aspects of diversity, beyond what’s already been established, in order to help expand the scope of dealers eligible to participate in the program. The first change went into effect Jan. 10 when the minimum new issue par amount for negotiated callable bonds decreased. That number will drop from $15 million to $10 million when diversity and inclusion dealers participate in the underwriting group.

A recent audit showed that the Federal Housing Finance Agency needs to do a better job at managing nonbank risks such as mortgage servicing transfers. In response, the FHFA said it will finalize a risk-based proposal to examine how well the GSEs manage that and other risks by the end of this month. The FHFA’s Inspector General said that the agency has not made sure that both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are tackling potential risks. The IG noted that out of three advisory bulletins issued that addressed nonbank servicer risk, one of the GSEs only complied with one of the bulletins.The heavily redacted report doesn’t mention which GSE failed to comply with the bulletins, but a...