What does IBM have to do with the mortgage business? Actually quite a bit, IBM is one of Fannie Mae’s largest technology vendors...

In defining misrepresentations, FHFA will set a minimum number of loans that must be identified with one of the six trigger elements.

Creation of a single GSE MBS would eliminate Freddie Mac's pricing disadvantage and improve liquidity in the to-be-announced market.

The fiscal 2014 audit report on the health of the FHA MMIF is expected to be released in mid-November.

Government attorneys sought to block Howard’s access on the grounds that he owns Fannie shares and would be biased.

Waiting several years to unify Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities into a single MBS could pose a huge risk to its successful completion, warned the mortgage banking industry, but Wall Street thinks it’s worth the wait to get market participants totally behind the move. The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s proposed single security for the government-sponsored enterprises met with conflicting views as the comment period ended this week. The proposal is aimed at eliminating Freddie’s pricing disadvantage and improving liquidity in the to-be-announced market. The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association urged...

New issuance of non-mortgage ABS faltered again in the third quarter of 2014, slipping 5.4 percent from the second quarter, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis. Issuers produced $46.48 billion of new ABS during the third quarter. While that marked the second straight quarterly decline after the robust $53.44 billion issued in early 2014, current issuance levels remained relatively high for the post-crisis period. Through the first nine months of 2014, new ABS issuance totaled...[Includes three data charts]

Subprime loans are accounting for a larger share of auto ABS issuance and losses on auto ABS are increasing. However, rating services suggest that the trends aren’t too worrisome, with ratings performance on track to record one of the best years ever. Some $66.9 billion in auto ABS were issued this year through September, up 26.8 percent from the same period in 2013. Subprime deals accounted for 25.8 percent of auto ABS issued this year, and volume ($17.0 billion) was down slightly from a year ago. But subprime auto loans also show up...

The liquidity coverage ratio rule recently finalized by federal regulators will hinder the revival of the non-agency MBS market, according to industry participants. Non-agency MBS are not counted as high-quality liquid assets (HQLA) under the rule, reducing incentives for banks to hold the securities. The Structured Finance Industry Group and others raised concerns about the lack of an HQLA designation for non-agency MBS at a time when the Obama administration is working to revive the non-agency MBS market. “There are...

Mortgage industry executives should be aware and expect continued – and perhaps even more muscular – use of a 1989 federal law by government prosecutors to pursue mortgage-related claims. At the direction of Attorney General Eric Holder, the Department of Justice embraced the use of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA) in MBS lawsuits. Despite Holder’s announcement late last month that he is stepping down after six years as AG, there is...