REFinBlog

November 27, 2012

Disturbing Reminders about Rating Agencies in Brummer’s New Article

Some disturbing reminders in The New Politics of Transatlantic Credit Rating Agency Regulation.  Major rating agencies (CRAs) generally did not verify the information used to determine the creditworthiness of the products they rated. Plus new models for rating subprime mortgages … Continue reading →

November 20, 2012

“Downgrading Rating Agency Reform”

This is the title of Jeffrey Mann’s forthcoming article.  He writes The most important part of the Act remains the most unresolved: the SEC’s mandate to design an alternative rating industry    business model to address the conflicts of interest created … Continue reading →

November 19, 2012

FHA 2012 Annual Report on MMIF Shows Great Stress on Agency

The report‘s findings show that the academic critics (here and here) of the FHA’s risk analysis were on to something over the last couple of years.

SEC 2012 Report on NRSROs

This SEC staff report has some interesting findings that relate to asset-backed securitizations.  Highlights include The pie charts on page 6 that indicate the overall market share of NRSROs as well as their share by sector.  It is interesting to … Continue reading →

November 14, 2012

Primary Architect of Mortgage Initiatives at CFPB To Leave

Raj Date, the number two official at the CFPB, is leaving as the Bureau completes its mortgage regulations.  Story here.

November 10, 2012

FHFA and CFPB To Create a National Mortgage Database

This is a very big deal.  Data on mortgages is very fractured and imcomplete and it is hard for researchers to access in many cases.  Private companies that collected such data often are unwilling to share it and some types … Continue reading →

Australian Court Rules S&P’s Ratings of MBS were Misleading

Hannah Low and Jonathan Shapiro of the Australian Financial Review report that an Australian Federal Court ruled that Standard & Poor’s rating of complex financial products was misleading. The court held that the credit assessment process was negligent and no … Continue reading →