ABS

For decades, the details regulators learned about banks through the examination process have been tantamount to state secrets available to a select few.

The Treasury Department has revised the President's loan modification plan to require participating servicers to consider the FHA Hope for Homeowners program as an option and write down the principal amount of the mortgage.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has said that it is still evaluating a strategy that has lowered longer-term mortgage rates and has noted some slowing in the financial system's contraction, but it added that it currently considers economic woes remain bad enough to keep the shorter-term fed funds rate low for some time.

The Senate has passed a bill that expands the bank fraud statutes to cover independent mortgage companies and mortgage brokers and increases funding for federal investigations of mortgage and financial fraud by $165 million.

Credit card losses suddenly escalated in the first quarter as unemployment and other economic conditions worsened, spooking issuers to the point where most shied away from forecasting losses beyond the near term.

A proposal that would allow Ginnie Mae to give some type of assistance to the warehouse lending sector is moving closer to fruition, according to industry sources.

The Obama administration detailed new efforts to help bring relief to responsible homeowners under the Making Home Affordable Program.

April remittance reports reflecting March's collection period showed improved early-stage delinquencies, faster liquidation speeds, as well as higher loss severities, according to a report by Barclays Capital.

CitiMortgage ranked first among all jumbo lenders last year, but industry-wide residential fundings in this once hot sector fell by 57% according to new figures compiled by National Mortgage News (NMN) and the Quarterly Data Report.

Senate Democratic leaders want to force a vote on the bankruptcy cramdown issue this week even though they have not reached agreement on the cramdown provisions and it appears they don't have the votes to pass it.

Henrik Raber, formerly a European fixed-income banker at UBS, joined Standard Chartered as head of its U.S. and European capital markets business, according to published reports. He will join StanChart in August.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) is looking to commit as much as $1.5 billion to distressed investments, one third of which would be used to boost the firm’s exposure to leveraged loans, according to Reuters.

The European Parliament voted last week in favor of strict rules to improve the transparency and independence of credit ratings.

Federal regulators released more details Friday about how they did their stress tests — even as they sat down with bankers to tell them how they had performed.

Freddie Mac's issuance of MBS totaled $57.7 billion in March — nearly double its activity in February as a result of the surge in refinancings.

BlackRock has hired Russell Brownback, Leland Hart, Michael Lipsky, Mike Phelps, John Stein, Josh Tarnow and Michael Weaver, all formerly of R3 Capital Management, as managing directors.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), together with its affiliate the European Securitization Forum (ESF), said they welcomed the announcement of the U.K. government's 2009 ABS Guaranty Scheme for RMBS.

Fitch Ratings said that the recently proposed amendments to include a credit support annex (CSA) for six Harbourmaster CLO transactions are a positive structural feature as they reduce counterparty risk within the deals.

Lawmakers at a House Financial Services Committee hearing Thursday appeared open to moderating mortgage reform legislation after complaints that it would reduce lending.

U.K. building societies are in talks with the Bank of England (BoE) about their use of the Special Liquidity Scheme (SLS), according to Dresdner Kleinwort analysts.