A senior executive at the mortgage giant provides a rare glimpse into the how the new credit score impacts lender operations.

The voluntary scope aims to standardize practices among due diligence reviewers and also prevent a “race to the bottom.”

A Federal Reserve economist estimates that a one-percentage-point steepening of the yield curve reduces the spread between mortgages and the 10-year Treasury yield by 40 basis points.

The guidelines for closed-end seconds will permit a partial compliance review, a departure from the current TRID Grid 4.0.

“If [the GSEs] are going to distribute them into securities,” said Bose George, a managing director of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, “I assume there’ll be some sort of pay-up for these loans, because people don’t know the performance yet.”

MBS investors are likely to charge a pay-up for securities backed by mortgages underwritten with VantageScore — at least until they’re confident prepayment speeds won’t accelerate.

New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has long criticized the size of the Fed’s balance sheet, in particular, its massive holdings of agency MBS.

Early interest in the VantageScore 4.0 pilot has been strong, but participants note that the new score can be up to 100 points different from Classic FICO.

Dave Paulson, CEO of the FHLB of Pittsburgh, pointed out that, prior to the 2023 banking crisis, many FHLBank officials didn’t know who their direct contact was at the Fed.

Both VantageScore and FICO have commissioned research to support their claims of superiority. But the truth probably won’t be known until VantageScore 4.0 and FICO 10T compete head-to-head.