The mortgage finance industry generally supports the final interagency statement on diversity policies and practices issued by the federal banking regulators, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Securities and Exchange Commission, but called for additional clarification on some of the data being sought in order to maximize its effectiveness – and to limit lender liability. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its members appreciate the flexibility of voluntary participation that is reflected in the final statement, but noted there remain some questions around how this voluntary information will be collected. Three key issues include how the information will be shared once it is collected, what examiners will expect to see, and how lenders should present the information to regulators. On the first question, the MBA raised...

The manufactured housing industry wants the Federal Housing Finance Agency to push Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase more manufactured housing loans under its forthcoming “duty-to-serve” rule. The “duty-to-serve” rule was mandated by the 2008 Housing and Economic Recovery Act to steer the government-sponsored enterprises to support underserved markets. In particular, that included manufactured housing, rural housing and affordable housing preservation. A final rule has never been implemented...

If the Federal Housing Finance Agency implements a principal reduction program that applies to all delinquent mortgages serviced by the government-sponsored enterprises that have negative equity, the Housing Finance Policy Center estimated that 14,563 principal-reduction mods would be completed.

The Nonprofit Alliance of Consumer Advocates focuses on helping borrowers that have mortgages owned by a servicer subject to the $25 billion national servicing settlement.

The metric will assess lender performance based on the lender’s default rate within three credit-score bands and compare it to an FHA target rate, rather than to the lender’s peers.

The average daily trading volume in agency MBS increased to $189.0 billion in July, a rare occurrence for an asset that’s been under selling pressure this year. According to figures compiled by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, trading volume peaked in January at $245.9 billion and hasn’t looked that good since. In June, trading volume was an anemic $183.7 billion, the lowest reading of the year. Investors continue...

A federal appeals court in New Orleans has overturned a 2014 district court ruling, reviving two government MBS lawsuits that were initially dismissed because they were filed past the state’s established time limit. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s separate lawsuits against RBS Securities Inc., on one hand, and against Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, were both filed on Aug. 17, 2012. The complaints alleged that the banks misled investors about the credit quality of the mortgage loans that backed $840 million in non-agency MBS. The district court’s decision to dismiss, however, turned on...

Standard & Poor’s ranked as the most active rating service in the non-mortgage ABS market at the midway mark in 2015, but came in last in the non-agency MBS sector. S&P provided ratings on $63.55 billion of non-mortgage ABS issued during the first half of the year, or 60.3 percent of total issuance. That was off slightly from its 64.1 percent market share for all of last year. The company has gotten more active in rating credit card deals, but has lost some of its share in vehicle finance and business loan ABS. Fitch was...[Includes two data tables]

The application of capital requirements to MBS and other structured finance products in the coming years will likely trump any typical collateral analysis investors currently consider, according to analysts at Standard & Poor’s. In a report published late last week, the analysts said global capital requirements have the potential to become impediments to providing financing via securitized products. “Of particular investor focus recently are...

Moody’s Investors Service late last week proposed changes to how it rates commercial MBS. The rating service, which has been lagging in rating the type of deals subject to the revision, said the changes will result in upgrades and more positive treatment of loans with high loan-to-value ratios. Moody’s proposed to recalibrate its benchmark LTV ratios and “refine” how adjustments are made to benchmark LTV ratios. The proposal would allow for lower subordination requirements. The changes would apply to ratings of multi-borrower large loan commercial MBS and single asset/single borrower commercial MBS. “The main objective of the proposed changes for North American securitizations is...