Regulatory reform

Banking regulatory agencies Thursday announced that they would raise the aggregate loan commitment threshold for syndicated loans to be included in the Shared National Credit program from $20 million to $100 million.

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.

Until recently, there was a consensus among policymakers that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac needed to be eliminated. That just changed. Here's why.

House Financial Services Committee Jeb Hensarling shifted tactics on housing finance reform Wednesday, acknowledging that a bill he’s pushed for years to virtually eliminate the government’s role in the mortgage market lacks the support to become law.

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.

The regulatory relief bill would raise the SIFI threshold to $250 billion of assets and allow mortgages held in portfolio to be counted as "qualified," among other items, but it is far less sweeping than institutions had hoped.

A bill that would ease Basel III capital requirements on commercial real estate loans could level the playing field between depository and nonbank lenders and spur more construction lending if it passes in the Senate.

Mark Calabria, the chief economic adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, said the administration is focused for now on more pressing issues than GSE reform, including addressing housing damage from recent hurricanes.

A GAO determination has effectively nullified a 2013 leveraged lending guidance. But that leaves the future uncertain about what, if anything, regulators will devise to replace it — and how banks should treat such loans in the meantime.