The European Central Bank (ECB) has relaxed its collateral requirements for repo eligibility in a bid to create more liquidity for European banks.

A broad range of institutional investors — including pension funds, insurance firms, and sovereign wealth funds — is set to increase their exposure to real estate as an asset class, according to new research from State Street Corp.

Wells Fargo & Co. – as the industry is quite aware – is a dominant force in both residential production and servicing, but it continues to tower above all competitors in the GNMA market.

After rating the performance of its top 10 Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) servicers, the U.S. Treasury Department said JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America need to make further improvements before they receive incentive payments from the government.

Federal regulators took another step Wednesday toward lessening banks' reliance on credit ratings by proposing three methods for assessing risk on firms' trading books.

U.S. structured finance is expected to be stable from a credit and ratings standpoint, although macro uncertainties can test collateral performance for some asset classes, Fitch Ratings said in its 2012 outlook report.

TRACCR has launched its multi-dealer request-for-quote credit derivatives electronic brokerage service, which allows investor clients to trade credit derivatives either in credit-linked note or credit default swap formats.

The illiquidity of the new-issue, private-label RMBS market is a significant reason for the difficult economic and housing situation confronting the U.S. today, according to CoreLogic Chief Economist Mark Fleming.

Doing something — anything — quickly but poorly is no substitute for taking the time to do what needs to be done well.

Servicers refinanced more than 85,000 high LTV loans under the Home Affordable Refinancing Program (HARP) in the third quarter, up nearly 11% from the prior period, according to new figures compiled by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The agency MBS November prepayment reports were uneventful and in line consensus expectations on 30-year conventionals.

The Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) Refinance Index reversed out exactly the prior week's percentage decline, increasing 15.3% to 3268.7 for the week ending Dec. 2.