With many borrowers now taking advantage of nationwide forbearance programs as they struggle to make their monthly mortgage payments, Ginnie Mae announced today that it will take action to ensure liquidity in the mortgage-backed securities market during the coronavirus pandemic.
To help ensure liquidity in the secondary mortgage market, the Federal Housing Finance Agency today directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to engage in additional dollar roll transactions, which would provide investors in mortgage-backed securities with short-term financing of their positions.
In its most sweeping move yet to prop up the U.S. economy amid the coronavirus pandemic and public health response, the Federal Reserve this morning unveiled several new facilities to support the flow of up to $300 billion in financing to households and businesses and committed to quantitative easing “in amounts needed” to support market functioning.
The FDIC today finalized amendments to its securitization safe harbor rule, which addresses circumstances that may arise if the FDIC is appointed receiver or conservator for an insured depository institution that has sponsored one or more securitization transactions.
The American Bankers Association joined several housing and financial trade groups in a letter to the Federal Housing Finance Agency today highlighting concerns about recently proposed changes to uniform mortgage-backed security pooling practices used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency today announced that former Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Christopher Giancarlo will serve as independent, non-executive chairman of the board of Common Securitization Solutions, a joint venture between Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to support their uniform mortgage-backed security.
As part of its ongoing actions to implement regulatory relief identified by the decennial Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act review, the OCC today proposed several rule changes and sought comments on prospective changes sought by ABA during the EGRPRA feedback process.
In an effort to increase access to capital markets, the Securities and Exchange Commission today proposed updating the test for an “accredited investor” to include individuals’ qualifications based on professional knowledge, experience or certifications, as well as expanding the list of entities that may qualify.
ABA today filed a comment letter urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to modernize its regulations on Rule 144A securities in order to maintain a level playing field between bank-maintained collective investment funds and mutual funds.
Structural issues in the repo market led to last week’s market turbulence.