Freddie Sets Date for First Quarter Results. Freddie Mac announced that it plans to report its first quarter 2016 financial results before the U.S. financial markets open on Tuesday, May 3, 2016. Fannie Completes 10th CIRT Transaction to Date. Fannie Mae completed its latest Credit Insurance Risk Transfer transaction last week and it’s 10th deal since the program’s inception in 2013. This deal, CIRT 2016-3, shifts a portion of the credit risk on a pool of single-family loans with an unpaid principal balance of approximately $5.7 billion to a single insurer. The covered loan pool consists of 30-year fixed- rate loans with...

The Department of Justice helped lead other federal and state entities in a $5.06 billion settlement with Goldman Sachs. The settlement announced this week involves non-agency MBS underwritten by Goldman between 2005 and 2007. The charges were centered on representations made by Goldman to investors in about 530 non-agency MBS. The offering documents for the MBS stated that mortgages in the deals were originated “generally in accordance with the loan originator’s underwriting guidelines,” other than possible situations where “when the originator identified ‘compensating factors’ at the time of origination.” Findings by third-party due diligence firms helped...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities remained the preferred investment choice of the 11 Federal Home Loan Banks during the fourth quarter of 2015 and for the year, according to a new ranking by Inside The GSEs based on data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. There was a slight 0.9 percent quarterly decline, but a generous 34.7 percent increase from a year earlier. GSE MBS accounted for 77.9 percent of combined MBS portfolios. The FHFA data does not separately break out Fannie and Freddie volume or share.Meanwhile, Ginnie Mae investments accounted for 11.7 percent and non-agency investments were 10.4 percent.

As risks from cyber attacks on financial institutions remain a top concern, the Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of the Inspector General determined that the oversight of the Federal Home Loan Banks’ cybersecurity program is not effective.In an audit released late last month, the IG found in 14 out of the 15 Federal Home Loan Bank IT examinations performed in 2013 and 2014 that included vulnerability scanning and/or penetration testing, the division of bank regulation did not asses the design of the tests performed by contractors at the banks’ discretion.Vulnerability scanning includes a thorough examination of computers, computer systems, networks, and applications to identify security weaknesses.

FHLBank Advance Data. JP Morgan Chase took the top spot for having the largest amount of Federal Home Loan Bank advances in the fourth quarter at $71,581. The bank saw a slight drop, 2.7 percent from the previous quarter, according to the latest data from Inside The GSEs (with chart). New number for Fannie. Fannie Mae created an easy to remember phone number to make getting in touch with the GSE simpler. Call 1-800-2-FANNIE (1-800-232-6643), which this week replaced multiple numbers. The GSE said the old phone numbers will remain available for a limited period of time. FHFA Chief FOIA Office Report. The 2016 Federal Housing Finance Agency Freedom of Information Act Officer Report noted that inter-agency emails, director calendar entries, internal memos and internal employee training materials are examples of the types of information the agency released at its discretion.

The 11 surviving Federal Home Loan Banks posted a significant increase in net income during the fourth quarter of 2015, along with a surprising jump in advances. The Office of Finance reported that the FHLBanks generated $673 million in net income during the fourth quarter, a 39.0 percent increase from the prior period. That brought year-to-date income to $2.850 billion, a 26.6 percent gain from 2014. Non-interest income was up sharply last year in large part because of settlements related to FHLBank investments in soured non-agency mortgage-backed securities, which brought in $688 million in 2015, mostly in the first half of the year. Legal settlements accounted for...

Consumers complained to the CFPB about debt collection issues at a substantially reduced level during the fourth quarter of 2015, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside the CFPB. During the period ending Dec. 31, 2015, consumer gripes were down 27.5 percent versus the previous quarter.Among the top 50 companies as ranked by consumer criticisms, 45 saw a double-digit percentage decline. Year over year, the story is less inspirational, with consumer kvetching down a mere 0.6 percent. Six companies saw complaints leap by triple digit percentages. To put some anecdotal flesh on these empirical bones, in the CFPB’s most recent supervisory highlights report, the bureau pointed out that during its examination of at least one debt collector, ...

Captive insurance companies don’t belong in the Federal Home Loan Bank system, according to the former chair of the Federal Housing Finance Board, the system’s previous regulator. “Simply put, the Federal Housing Finance Agency got it right with this regulation,” said Ronald Rosenfield, who served as chair of the FHFB in 2005, prior to the creation of the FHFA. During his three-year tenure, there were some captives joining, but he said they were doing so at a much slower pace. The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s recent decision to ban captives from joining the system has caused some uproar among industry groups who opposed the final ruling, but Rosenfield thinks it was the right thing to do.

Although captive insurance companies are now barred from joining, membership among traditional insurers in the Federal Home Loan Banks is growing. Fitch Ratings reports that the number of insurance companies participating in the FHLB system has grown by an average of close to 8 percent annually over the past five years. Membership is more commonly associated with commercial banks and other deposit and lending institutions, but there were 304 FHLBank insurance company members by the end of 2014, representing 4 percent of the total membership and nearly 13 percent of all funds advanced to members, said Fitch. Several groups of insurance companies have also substantially increased their borrowing capacity.

Officials at American Capital Agency announced last week that the real estate investment trust formed a wholly-owned broker-dealer subsidiary. The broker-dealer will help provide the REIT with repo funding and to-be-announced MBS trade-clearing capabilities. Peter Federico, a senior vice president and chief risk officer at American Capital, said the REIT started forming the broker-dealer about six months ago. He said the entity is fully staffed and is in the regulatory application process, with operations expected to begin midyear. “Once our broker-dealer is up and running, we will pursue...