The Obama administration needs to move more aggressively than planned if it wants to return the FHA mortgage insurance program to its traditional client base and market size, according to a new analysis by researchers at George Washington University. At a time when many industry and consumer groups are urging policymakers to maintain the status quo so as not to hurt a still fragile housing market, report authors Robert Van Order and Anthony Yezer say FHA loan limits should be ...

Fannie Mae late last week reiterated to lenders its policy on mortgage insurance coverage while it also tweaked its requirements for reporting notifications of MI rescissions, mortgage insurer-initiated cancellations and claim denials. The government-sponsored enterprise’s announcement, published June 30, reminds servicers of their “contractual obligations” to ensure that any MI coverage required by Fannie is maintained. “Mortgage insurance claims must be pursued in a way that will at all times protect Fannie Mae’s ...

There is a good chance that criminal charges will be brought by the U.S. Department of Justice against the major mortgage servicers following a nationwide probe into robo-signing and other foreclosure processing issues. Officials representing the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, a broad coalition of federal agencies working with state and local officials, said during a recent hearing in the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts, that further investigations and prosecutions stemming from ...

Financial institutions are taking steps to prepare for an increased amount of data they will have to collect and report as a result of the regulatory deluge from the Dodd-Frank Act, according to experts participating in a webinar sponsored by Deloitte & Touche late last week. Organizations are “focused on disclosure, taking inventory of their own rules and regulations and they’re doing a series of different types ...

Bank of America’s hefty $8.5 billion offer to settle representations and warranties claims on Countrywide non-agency MBS will help the bank move past a big chunk of its mortgage woes while giving investors in the worst-performing deals a positive jolt. BofA announced separate agreements with Bank of New York Mellon, the trustee for some 530 non-agency MBS issued...[Includes one data chart]

There have been only a few non-agency MBS securitizations in 2011, and the remainder of the year is not expected to be any more fruitful, according to panelists at the American Securitization Forum annual conference held last week in Washington, DC. Fitch Ratings has rated only one RMBS transaction, said Douglas Murray, group managing director at Fitch Ratings, but there have been...

An official from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York defended the joint agency proposed rule on risk retention, claiming that it doesn’t do anything to block incentives to securitize. The proposed rule has been widely criticized by Wall Street and other financial institutions, which have urged the agencies to start over again with a new proposal. “I don’t understand how you would get...

Ginnie Mae has made some changes regarding the collection and reporting of data on the underlying collateral that backs outstanding Ginnie Mae MBS. The goal is to expand the type of data collected at pool issuance to provide greater transparency and more relevant information to investors. The technical changes were laid out this week for Ginnie Mae program participants during a webinar hosted by the agency. Some of the changes relate...

Tradeweb claims its Round Robin functionality has curbed trade failures in the to be announced mortgage market to the tune of $166 billion since it was introduced in November. First, the service has reduced the “round robin” risk; that is, the risk associated with a chain of matched fails that frequently becomes a closed loop. The new technology enables institutional clients to pair-off TBA mortgage pool transactions with dealers, which reduces...

Overseas investors were net sellers of U.S. agency notes and bonds – including agency MBS – during the first quarter of 2011, according to an analysis of market data by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Associations. Foreign investors bought some $5.46 billion of agency paper during the first quarter of this year, but that wasn’t...[Includes one data chart]