Housing finance reform

Lenders should be encouraged to hold more credit risk in the mortgage market, rather than having it foisted on Fannie and Freddie.

Fallout from the Fed's blow to Wells Fargo; a call for calm in the rush to regulate cryptocurrencies; point-of-sale lending has its day; and more.

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.

Housing finance reformers are pushing full steam ahead to get a bill introduced before the political calendar makes passage nearly impossible.

The government must continue to provide support for the mortgage market in any new housing finance system, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday.

The Community Home Lenders Association sent a letter to the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday laying out its priorities for GSE reform.

Supporters of an unreleased bill to revamp the housing finance system say the plan strikes a middle ground that can gain support from both sides of the aisle.

An exclusive look at the Senate's tightly held housing finance plan drew the most interest from readers this week, while TD's foray into AI and the roller coaster at CFPB also dominated attention.

Senate negotiators are working on a bill that would place Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into receivership and replace them with multiple mortgage guarantors, according to sources.

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.

FHFA Director Mel Watt said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be reincorporated as private entities and the government must provide an explicit guarantee for catastrophic losses in the secondary mortgage market.

House Republicans are exiting Congress in droves ahead of the 2018 midterm elections and the stakes for the financial services industry could be significant.

Of the more than 30 GOP lawmakers due to retire at yearend — a historically significant level of departures for a single election — several are important to banking policy.

House Republicans are exiting Congress in droves ahead of the 2018 midterm elections and the stakes for the financial services industry could be significant.

Cryptocurrencies continue to dominate much of the news, with a warning on bitcoin taking the top spot and a story about Ripple's partnership with MoneyGram doing well. Housing finance reform, Wells Fargo and the CFPB also featured.

The Senate Banking Committee is expected soon to release a bipartisan bill that would significantly reshape the housing finance market, but key issues remain unresolved.

A regulatory relief package is likely to come out of the Senate in the new year, and lawmakers could follow it up with a housing finance reform push. But the midterm elections could cause some reform initiatives to grind to a halt.

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 government-sponsored enterprises are at the heart of our housing finance problems, not the solutions.