Steven Mnuchin

The agency that supervises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has pushed for revising an agreement with the Treasury Department allowing the mortgage giants to retain their profits. A deal could be out of reach once Joe Biden takes office.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin called on the Federal Reserve Thursday to let several of its emergency lending facilities expire at yearend and return unused funds provided by Congress. But the central bank wants the programs to continue.

Frank Pallotta sold Wall Street services to lenders and later helped create programs to help underwater borrowers. Now he's running to represent a district both parties fight hard over.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council said the mortgage giants may need a bigger capital cushion than their regulator has proposed, but stopped short of designating them as “systemically important financial institutions.”

Commercial real estate companies are among those left out of the Federal Reserve’s middle-market relief program, but House members said they need government-backed financing to navigate the pandemic as much as anyone.

Individuals who received a coronavirus stimulus check earlier this year also qualify for the protection, as do couples who jointly file their taxes and expect to earn less than $198,000.

The former attorney general for the state went her own way on the national servicing settlement, but critics claim she let OneWest off easy.

Whalen: "It is tempting to think that low interest rates will cure all ills in the housing sector, but this view is seriously in error, as we learned in 2008."

The council created by the Dodd-Frank Act to identify systemic risks launched a review of the market as part of an activities-based approach that shifts focus away from targeting individual firms.

The Treasury secretary said recent government moves will help the firms get through the risk of millions of borrowers missing their loan payments.

The letter written by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, was seen as a boost to Wall Street lobbying efforts seeking to quell the fallout of the coronavirus crisis on the mortgage market.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reiterated Thursday that he wants U.S. financial markets to remain open even as the coronavirus fuels wild volatility, while adding that he's focused on helping mortgage firms expected to be hit hard by the pandemic’s spreading economic pain.

The $2 trillion deal passed by the Senate late Wednesday would aim to put banks and consumers alike on stronger financial footing as they weather the coronavirus pandemic.

The rush to unload mortgage-backed securities signals that a credit meltdown that began with corporate bonds is spreading to other corners of the market.

The actions include cutting the federal funds rate to between 0% and 0.25% and other steps to ease economic stress from the spread of the coronavirus.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are expected to retain “limited and tailored government support” after they are released from U.S. control, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a letter to lawmakers.

Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee are pressuring Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mark Calabria and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuch to provide more details on administration plans to end the conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Financial regulators have been put on notice about the risk of an economically damaging cash crunch in the home mortgage market. Behind the concern: the rapid growth of shadow banks in the origination and servicing of home loans.

At a House hearing covering a whole host of housing finance reform topics, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's regulator said "if the circumstances" call for eliminating investors, "we will."

Whether Congress and/or the mortgage industry is able to untangle two opposing threads in the Trump administration's plans is anyone's guess.