SIFMA Wants Bigger Role for the Federal Housing Finance Agency in the Structure of the Single Security

SIFMA expressed concern that the Federal Housing Finance Agency ("FHFA") will not have a strong enough role in maintaining the policy and practice alignment of the operations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ("GSE") regarding the processes used to issue a single form of mortgage-backed security ("MBS"). In response to FHFA's Update on the Structure of the Single Security ("Update"), SIFMA stated that the alignment of policy, practice and performance should be FHFA's top priority, and that the Update does not offer enough detail regarding the process to create and maintain such alignment. SIFMA recommended that "alignment of prepayment speeds must be ensured by establishing a concrete vetting and review process for new lending, underwriting, servicing, securitization, or other programs and policies or changes to existing programs and policies, when these changes are expected to have a material impact on MBS performance or be of significant size."

See: SIFMA's Comment Letter on FHFA's "Update" Proposal.