Mel Watt

The groups applauded a proposal to establish minimum GSE capital requirements, but called for more immediate steps to release the companies from conservatorship.

No plan will be implemented as long as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac remain in conservatorship, but a capital framework for the companies could still have a substantive impact.

The agency proposed new minimum capital requirements for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that would only go into effect if the government ends its conservatorships.

In the continued absence of legislation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s regulator announced work on a new capital framework.

The Treasury secretary said reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will come into focus more in 2019, when Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt’s term will end.

After several years of preparation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will start issuing a new, common mortgage-backed security starting June 3, 2019, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said Wednesday.

The House Financial Services Committee chairman is calling out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's regulator for authorizing payments to two housing trust funds while the mortgage giants have their own financial struggles.

Despite a legislative push by some senators and other stakeholders to jump-start housing finance reform, efforts to form consensus over a bill once again are stuck in neutral.

As conservator, FHFA Director Mel Watt has substantial leeway to remake the government-sponsored enterprises without congressional input. Here's one way he might do so.

Craig Phillips, a top aide to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, said his department "broadly" agrees with the FHFA plan, which would return Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the private market and provide them an explicit government guarantee.

The announcement Thursday that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt agreed to let Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac each build a $3 billion capital buffer avoided a potential crisis.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be allowed to build capital buffers to protect against losses under an agreement between the Treasury Department and the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced on Thursday.

The two government-sponsored enterprises have relied on the “classic” FICO credit scoring model for the past 12 years. But the Federal Housing Finance Agency is weighing whether the GSEs should upgrade to more recent scoring alternatives.

Testing of the common securitization platform is taking longer than expected, but the Federal Housing Finance Agency said it won't delay the 2019 launch of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's new single "uniform mortgage-backed security."

The financial services industry has cheered a proposed reduction in the corporate tax rate, but a lower rate could force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to write down assets, increasing the odds that the companies will need Treasury support.

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt said the agency is poised to examine alternatives to how a Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac assess creditworthiness of home buyers, including seeking public comment on the issue later this fall.

In a moment of rare unity, the Independent Community Bankers of America and National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions sent a joint letter to FHFA arguing to stop the GSEs' profit sweep.

Though FHFA Director Mel Watt stopped short of saying he would break with a Treasury agreement that forces all profits of the GSEs to go to the government, he emphasized that it couldn’t continue indefinitely.

Despite a direct request by six Democratic senators that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac be allowed to rebuild capital, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin did little to clarify the administration's thinking.

The mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could need nearly $100 billion in bailout money in the event of a new economic crisis, according to stress test results released Monday by their regulator.