The advance policies of nonbank servicers have led to disruptions in payments to investors in non-agency MBS following servicing transfers from banks, according to Fitch Ratings. The differences are particularly pronounced on jumbo and Alt A deals, with advance disruptions recently concentrated on MBS previously serviced by Bank of America. “Bank and nonbank servicers for residential MBS transactions typically follow the same general advancing guidelines,” Fitch noted. “However, nonbank servicers generally make the determination to stop advancing earlier than bank servicers.” On average, for jumbo MBS and Alt A MBS, nonbanks advance missed...

Fannie Mae this week priced its second credit risk-sharing deal of 2014. The $1.6 billion note is the government-sponsored enterprise’s third and largest transaction under its Connecticut Avenue Securities series since the Federal Housing Finance Agency ordered both Fannie and Freddie Mac to shrink the GSEs’ role in the U.S. housing market last year. In its latest offering – Series 2014-C02 – Fannie said it included reference loans with original loan-to-value ratios of up to 97 percent. Previous C-deal offerings included reference loans with up to 80 percent original LTV ratios. “As the market moves from a refinance market to a purchase-money market, it is...

Rating services and due-diligence firms have plenty of time to analyze originators of jumbo mortgages headed to the securitization market, according to industry experts speaking this week at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual Secondary Market Conference in New York. All the rating services are putting greater emphasis on understanding originator business practices as part of evaluating jumbo mortgage-backed securities deals, said Sharif Mahdavian, an analyst at Standard & Poor’s ...

Standard & Poor’s ranked as the top rating service in the non-mortgage ABS market and also claimed the top spot in the sputtering non-agency MBS sphere, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking of first-quarter activity. S&P rated seven of the 11 non-agency MBS issued in the first three months of 2014, or 78.0 percent based on dollar volume. Once the perennial leader in non-agency MBS ratings, S&P’s market share has been around 40.0 percent in recent years. DBRS ranked...[Includes two data charts]

Standard & Poor’s is seeking comments on a proposal for assessing operational risk posed by key transaction parties such as servicers in structured finance transactions. The request for comments follows a similar request from S&P in 2011. “We made a number of changes to the previous request for comment in view of the responses we received and our desire to enhance the risk considerations under the proposed operational risk framework,” said Joseph Sheridan, S&P’s criteria officer. “We also expanded the proposal’s scope. Where we believe operational risk could lead to credit instability and a ratings impact, the proposal would call for rating caps that limit the securitization’s maximum potential rating.” The rating service is proposing...

Bayview Asset Management announced late last week that it will delay the issuance of a non-agency MBS backed by re-performing subprime mortgages with an unpaid principal balance of $215 million. The delay was prompted by concerns about property valuations and loss severity. Standard & Poor’s issued a presale report on Bayview Opportunity Master Fund Trust 2014-9RPL on April 28, and the deal was scheduled to close May 12. The MBS was set to receive a AAA rating from S&P, but the rating service said it withdrew its preliminary rating due to Bayview’s extension of the planned closing date. The delay in closing was prompted...

There are some potential problems with the evolving peer-to-peer lending sector that need to be resolved before ratings can be assigned to the securitization of such assets, according to Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. To start to get a handle on this emerging sector, it is important to understand P2P companies’ specific strategies and their target demographic of borrowers and investors. “Platform operators in the P2P lending sector are...

Although the pace of blockbuster servicing deals appears to have slowed, the giants of the mortgage-servicing business continued to leak market share in early 2014. Significantly, there is now just one lender with more than $1 trillion in mortgage servicing. Back in the third quarter of 2005, Countrywide Financial became the first company to amass over $1 trillion in mortgage servicing, and Wells Fargo joined the club by the end of that year. Chase Home Finance became a $1 trillion servicer in the fourth quarter of 2008, shortly after Bank of America took over Countrywide and became the first $2 trillion servicer. But BofA dumped...[Includes two data charts]

UBS AG and Union Central Life Insurance Co. this week announced they have settled their legal dispute regarding the sale of residential MBS that UBS sold to the insurer in the years leading up to the financial crisis. The settlement reached in early March but jointly announced just this week, ends the legal action begun in a New York federal court in 2011. Union Central and affiliates Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. and Acacia Life Insurance Co. sued UBS and other financial service companies and executives in 2011, alleging that the defendants misrepresented the quality of the loans underlying the residential MBS that they sold to the insurers. In a 2012 amended complaint, Union Central alleged...

Kroll Bond Rating Agency, one of the most commonly used rating services for jumbo mortgage-backed securities in recent years, released its criteria this week for jumbo MBS that include mortgages subject to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability to repay rule. The criteria from KBRA is similar to criteria from the other rating services, with higher credit enhancement requirements for certain loans that don’t meet the CFPB’s standards for qualified mortgages ...