Can Risk-Transfer Products Attract Private Capital Back to U.S. Residential Mortgages?
May 18, 2012
The government overseer of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wants to help trim the footprint of the two government-sponsored enterprises by selling credit risk to private investors, but a top public policy analyst questions how effective such efforts will be in bringing private capital back to residential mortgage markets. The basic business model of credit-risk insurance doesnt just make sense, said Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics, a think-tank in Washington, DC. Because of the damage done in the run-up to the crisis, traditional insurers are at great risk of being...