Risk management

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is streamlining its Ginnie Mae holdings by combining mortgage-backed securities with similar characteristics into larger pass-through instruments.

Ginnie Mae should not overreact in supervising smaller, more diversified mortgage bankers, but rather scale its approach in line with the concentration of risk that different-sized servicers pose.

MGIC Investment Corp. responded to the broad-based roll out of "black box" pricing engines from the other mortgage insurers by bringing its version to market.

Radian and Essent will make their "black box" mortgage insurance pricing methods live on Jan. 21, leaving MGIC as the only company yet to announce its adoption.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has proposed barring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from using credit scores developed by VantageScore over concern about conflicts of interest with the joint venture of Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac charged lenders slightly lower guarantee fees in 2017 for mortgages with riskier characteristics, according to a Federal Housing Finance Agency report.

Wire fraud is considered a consumer and title agent issue, but the millions of dollars it's diverting from home purchase transactions make it an issue mortgage lenders need to address, too.

Private mortgage insurers are moving away from traditional rate cards in favor of more granular risk-based pricing to make their products more competitive and efficient for lenders.

Fannie Mae completed 10 traditional and front-end credit risk insurance transactions during 2018, sharing $2.6 billion of risk, including $192 million in its final deal of the year.

Beazer Homes USA is working to encourage competition among its approved lenders in order to help control upward pressure on home prices and lending rates that could slow sales.