Ginnie Mae is requesting additional funding in FY 2013 to hire more professionals to help manage the more than $1.2 trillion in outstanding guaranteed mortgage securities it holds and the increasing inherent risks associated with the MBS. Under its budget proposal, the agency is seeking an appropriation of $21 million for staff salaries and expenses in 2013, up from $19.5 million in 2012 and $11.07 million in 2011. The requested staffing increase would ensure improvement in managing areas where Ginnie Mae has the greatest risk exposure, including counterparty risk and defaulted portfolio management, according to the agency. Over the past few years, Ginnie Mae’s market share rose ...

Beginning this month, Ginnie Mae will start assigning alphanumeric IDs for mortgage-backed securities pools because it may soon run out of available pool numbers. In a recent alert to issuers, Ginnie Mae said alphanumeric pool numbers will be assigned first to fixed-rate types. However, issuers must make sure they have used up all their assigned pool numbers before asking for the new letter/number codes. Ginnie Mae advised issuers in 2009 to have their systems ready to accept alphanumeric IDs by March 2010. Meanwhile, MountainView Servicing Group has announced its offering of ...

Ginnie Mae said it may begin assigning alphanumeric pool numbers for MBS pools as soon as next month because it is fast running out of available pool numbers. The agency said fixed-rate pool types will be the first recipients of the alphanumeric pool numbers. Issuers should make sure that all their remaining assigned pool numbers are used before using the newly assigned alphanumeric IDs. Issuers were advised in 2009 to have their systems ready to accept alphanumeric IDs by March 1, 2010. In another development, MountainView Servicing Group has announced its offering of a $129 million portfolio of Ginnie...

Ginnie Mae may have reported potentially inaccurate data to Congress about its exposures because estimates were not based on the best available data, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office. The agency’s sensitivity analysis also ignored important data, which could affect the accuracy of its cash-flow forecasts, the report said. Although Ginnie Mae has revised its cash-flow forecast model, it has not implemented practices identified in Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board guidance and risk-budgeting guidance, the report noted. By ignoring such practices, Ginnie Mae’s model may not be ...

Ginnie Mae recently announced changes to rules implementing provisions under the Servicemembers’ Civil Relief Act for reimbursing excess mortgage interest to Ginnie Mae issuers. Under the revised SCRA reimbursement policy, issuers will be reimbursed excess interest payments on SCRA mortgage loans based on two different dates for reservists and active members of the military, said Ginnie Mae officials during an issuer outreach webinar on Dec. 8. If the borrower is a reservist, the reimbursement will be based on the date of the receipt of the deployment letter and reimbursements for active members will be based on the deployment date. Under the SCRA, mortgage lenders are required to ...

The fallout from Taylor, Bean & Whitaker’s collapse in 2009 continues to haunt Ginnie Mae after a recent independent auditor’s report found a potential overstatement of the agency’s portfolio of mortgages-held-for-investment (MHFI) apparently linked to the TBW debacle.The report by Clifton Gunderson, a Fairfax, VA-based certified public accounting firm, attributes the apparent portfolio anomaly to the current document custodian’s failure to complete a review and provide a final certification on the non-performing TBW loans. Ginnie Mae repurchased the loans from the defaulted TBW mortgage-backed securities pools and reclassified them as MHFIs. Overall, independent auditors signed off on Ginnie Mae’s FY 2011 balance sheet and found no material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting or any instance of noncompliance. Auditors, however, noted ...