At the recent invitation-only Ginnie Mae “liquidity summit” in Washington, DC, some of the nation’s top regulators – including one from the Federal Reserve – expressed their concerns about the growing market share of nonbank issuers and servicers. The focus, as might be expected, centered on the capital position of nonbanks, which pales in comparison to depositories. As one attendee told Inside MBS & ABS: “It was all about bashing the nonbanks.” This attendee, who spoke under the condition his name not be used, said...

Pleas from the securitization industry for the Supreme Court of the United States to hear an appeal of Midland Funding v. Madden were rejected this week, prolonging uncertainty in sectors of the secondary market. SCOTUS may still consider the issue at some point going forward, according to analysts, providing hope for the industry. Richard Johns, executive director of the Structured Finance Industry Group, said the denial of certiorari for Madden will result in significant challenges for borrowers of credit cards, mortgages, auto loans and other financial products. “The injection of uncertainty into the credit markets will ultimately increase the cost of credit for all and directly impact the real economy,” he said. The Madden case involved...

Fitch Ratings published updated criteria this week for rating residential MBS. The new criteria include adjustments to due diligence grades relating to the Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act disclosure rule and evaluations of firms serving as a deal agent. Fitch said the new criteria include a “realignment” of items that prompt C grades and D grades on mortgages reviewed by third-party due diligence firms. The changes incorporate the Structured Finance Industry Group’s recently issued RMBS 3.0 TRID Compliance Review. The rating service acknowledged...

Mortgage bankers that trade in the to-be-announced MBS market will be exempt from the initial margin requirements associated with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s revised Rule 4210, which was approved by an order of the Securities and Exchange Commission last week. Under the rule, as amended now three times by FINRA, market participants who trade TBAs will have to post an initial “maintenance” margin of 2 percent of net position size, along with an on-going variation margin, which will be subject to a $250,000 minimum transfer amount. However, the SEC order provided...

Several more court documents were released over the past week that offer additional details into the circumstances surrounding the Treasury Department’s decision to replace the quarterly dividend Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had been paying in conservatorship with a net worth sweep. Industry observers say the new memos and deposition transcripts reinforce the notion that the government had been planning the sweep for a while before it was implemented in late 2012. The government-sponsored enterprises’ shareholders have been challenging...

Since the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union a week ago, interest rates in the U.S. have been steadily falling, causing a rally in MBS prices. According to market watchers, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac MBS values for new securities haven’t been this good since January 2015. Meanwhile, mortgage rates touched a three-year low the past few days with some primary market lenders making new loans at 3.25 percent and no points. As Inside MBS & ABS went to press, the benchmark 10-year Treasury was yielding...

Thanks to last week’s “Brexit” vote in the U.K. interest rates in the U.S. are tumbling again, reaching new lows for the year. In turn, lenders are celebrating the increased flow of applications while the servicing side of their businesses prepares for the worst. For servicers – especially publicly traded companies – there is a palpable fear of deep mortgage servicing rights markdowns that almost certainly will affect second-quarter results. And the timing couldn’t be worse: the rate drop comes with no room left for recovery. The second quarter has ended. Over the past year, several publicly traded mortgage firms – Ocwen, PHH Corp., Stonegate Mortgage and Walter Investment Management Corp., to name a few – have been...

Given the extensive and uncertain administrative, civil and contractual liabilities mortgage lenders are confronted with under the new TRID disclosure regime, anxiety about the inevitable mistakes that will occur remain high. But there are a few remedies available to lenders. During a presentation at the recent American Bankers Association regulatory compliance conference in San Diego, Rich Horn, founding attorney at Rich Horn Legal in Washington, DC, spelled out just what options exist for mortgage lenders to “cure” loans with defects under the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s integrated-disclosure rule. “If you have liability for a TRID violation, how do...

Given the high stakes associated with the CFPB’s Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure Rule, commonly known as TRID, the mortgage lending industry perhaps can be forgiven for being hyper-sensitive to minute, incremental change, whether it be another clarifying rulemaking or a change in enforcement.Sometimes, these developments could be a matter of perception or semantics; at other times, facts on the ground may actually be changing. “Uncertainty about enforcement on TRID mirrors the uncertainty on the rule itself. TRID has been an extremely complex regulation for the industry to implement,” American Land Title Association CEO Michelle Korsmo told Inside the CFPB. “ALTA has continuously encouraged the CFPB to provide more written guidance on the 1,888-page ...

There is plenty of speculation in the mortgage industry these days about which issues are going to be addressed in the CFPB’s pending proposed rule to clarify many of the uncertainties associated with its Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure Rule, commonly known as TRID. During a panel discussion at the American Bankers Association’s annual regulatory compliance conference in San Diego earlier this month, Rodrigo Alba, senior vice president and senior regulatory counsel with the ABA, speculated that one of the main areas the bureau will address is the codification of the informal guidance CFPB officials have provided since the rule was released. As he sees it, the bureau will take all of the content and ...