Mel Watt

Whoever succeeds current Director Mel Watt will have a front-and-center role in efforts to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

With ruling in GSE case, the two agencies are emerging as the test subjects for a legal showdown over their authority.

A federal appeals court in Texas agreed with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders that the FHFA, led by a single director, violates the separation of powers.

The groups applauded a proposal to establish minimum GSE capital requirements, but called for more immediate steps to release the companies from conservatorship.

The agency proposed new minimum capital requirements for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that would only go into effect if the government ends its conservatorships.

In the continued absence of legislation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s regulator announced work on a new capital framework.

After several years of preparation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will start issuing a new, common mortgage-backed security starting June 3, 2019, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said Wednesday.

Despite a legislative push by some senators and other stakeholders to jump-start housing finance reform, efforts to form consensus over a bill once again are stuck in neutral.

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 two government-sponsored enterprises have relied on the “classic” FICO credit scoring model for the past 12 years. But the Federal Housing Finance Agency is weighing whether the GSEs should upgrade to more recent scoring alternatives.

Testing of the common securitization platform is taking longer than expected, but the Federal Housing Finance Agency said it won't delay the 2019 launch of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's new single "uniform mortgage-backed security."

The financial services industry has cheered a proposed reduction in the corporate tax rate, but a lower rate could force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to write down assets, increasing the odds that the companies will need Treasury support.

Though FHFA Director Mel Watt stopped short of saying he would break with a Treasury agreement that forces all profits of the GSEs to go to the government, he emphasized that it couldn’t continue indefinitely.