Ginnie Mae today announced recent enhancements to its risk management strategy.
The agency announced a multi-faceted approach to establishing a risk committee by appointing a chief risk officer and reconstituting its issuer review board to ensure its securities continue to remain safe and stable.
The agency appointed Stephen Ledbetter as chief risk officer. Ledbetter will also continue serving as acting vice president of the Office of MBS aside from his new role.
"Enhancing our risk management process is an enterprise-wide endeavor," said Joseph Murin, president of Ginnie Mae. "This is a very turbulent time for the mortgage industry. While our business model significantly limits risk, the current environment and our rapid growth has presented a different set of challenges than we have ever faced before. We have to take a long, hard look at our strategy to ensure we continue on the right path."
The Ginnie Mae release noted that the volume of Ginnie Mae's monthly MBS issuance hit $27 billion in June and $26 billion in July, more than triple what it had been for the same two months in 2007.
According to the release, the enhancements announced today will help the agency keep abreast of the financial condition and program compliance of its issuers, thus minimizing risk to the corporation.
The risk committee will promote an enterprise-wide approach to risk management and work with the risk committee, the chief risk officer is responsible for establishing a risk governance structure and providing independent evaluation and oversight of risk management activities.
The issuer review board is responsible for evaluating and overseeing issuer activities and compliance.
