RMBS

Barclays Capital believes that at least one of Freddie Mac’s proposed changes to its HARP 2.0 program will potentially increase prepayments for pre-HARP loans.

The loan limit on VA-guaranteed loans is slated to move up to $729,750 again, staying there for two years now that House of Representatives has passed a Veterans benefits bill.

Ally Financial lost $898 million in the second quarter, blaming its troubled (and bankrupt) mortgage banking division, Residential Capital Corp. (ResCap), for its problems.

The financial health of state housing finance agencies (HFA) is mixed, Fitch Ratings reported Tuesday.

For years, U.S. banks, and especially the largest ones, have dreaded the seemingly inevitable arrival of new and more burdensome regulatory capital requirements. U.S. banking regulators' proposal to revamp those requirements, issued in mid-June, should dispel many of their fears, although the proposal is likely to result in extra work for U.S. banks and may put them at a disadvantage to global competitors in the ABS market.

As the New York Federal Reserve moves closer to completing the winding down of its Maiden Lane (ML) vehicles, investors face a falloff in inventory volumes. This poses a further challenge in this yield-starved environment.

The ASF recently released a white paper entitled "Discussion of a Proposed Single Agency Security" that outlines the issues to be addressed in effectively merging the securities markets of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to reduce "TBA market inefficiencies." This column will discuss the implications of unresolved issues raised by the report.

By the end of this year, RMBS issuers keen on obtaining funding from the European Central Bank, as well as those already using these securities as collateral in sale and repurchase agreements, will need to input data on the underlying mortgages into the newly created European DataWarehouse, known pithily as ED.

Scheduled to launch later this year, the European DataWarehouse will, for the first time, house loan-level data on a wide range of loans backing the region's ABS. The European Central Bank is the information repository's biggest client and champion.

With interest rates low and federal housing initiatives in full force, the July prepayment report, scheduled for release in August, is expected to show an increase in speeds.