Washington, D.C. – The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) today issued a Credit Risk Transfer Progress Report updating the status and volume of credit risk transfer transactions through the first quarter of 2017. The Report gives a comprehensive picture of how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) transfer a portion of credit risk to the private sector through a variety of transactions in the single-family market.
The report shows that in the first quarter of 2017, the Enterprises transferred $5.5 billion of credit risk on mortgages with an unpaid principal balance (UPB) of $174 billion through capital markets, reinsurance, and front-end reinsurance transactions. This brings the total since the program began in 2013 to more than $54 billion of credit risk transferred on $1.6 trillion UPB.
The report also shows that in 2017 both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac modified the first loss structure of their debt issuances to, in general, retain the first 50 basis points of losses, mostly expected credit losses. This means the Enterprises are now selling most of the credit losses between 50 to 100 basis points.
This Credit Risk Transfer Progress Report provides data, definitions, and FHFA’s core principles in overseeing the Enterprise CRT programs. The report is updated regularly.