The Structured Finance Association (SFA) today released the following statement after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed Assembly Bill A164B into law. The highly-anticipated legislation will help facilitate the transition away from the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR) for certain legacy contracts and provide a legal safe harbor for rate replacement consistent with a legislative proposal from the Alternative Reference Rates Committee (ARRC).

Speaker nominations are now open for SFCanada 2021. Nominations will close Friday, April 23, 5:00 p.m. EDT.

MINNEAPOLIS, April 6, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - The winds of investing in the U.S. are shifting and women are a driving force behind the change. A recent client survey conducted by RBC Wealth Management – U.S. shows that responsible investing, namely Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), is gaining traction. Women are leading the charge for ESG investing and are more likely to have a positive outlook toward this growing investment trend.

On March 31, President Biden released the American Jobs Act, calling it "an investment in America that will create millions of good jobs, rebuild our country's infrastructure, and position the United States to out-compete China." Specifically, he called on Congress to take immediate steps to spur the construction and rehabilitation of homes for underserved communities and pass the innovative, bipartisan, and SFA-supported Neighborhood Homes Investment Act (NHIA).

On March 31, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rescinded seven policy statements issued last year that provided "temporary flexibilities" during the pandemic in consumer financial markets.

On March 30, Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge announced plans to not cut Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage premiums. Many mortgage industry experts and investors had anticipated an FHA premium reduction under the Biden Administration.

Recent data from S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Indices and the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI) show that U.S home prices soared in January.

On March 30, the Biden administration announced it is pausing more student loan payments for borrowers who are in default on government-backed loans owned by private lenders. The move extends relief to 1.14 million students who borrowed under the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFEL) and not yet covered under previous pandemic reprieves.

As co-chairs of the ARRC Securitizations Working Group, SFA has an instrumental role in helping to enable a smooth transition and, most recently, identifying the key considerations relevant to developing new issuance of securitized products based on SOFR.

London (CNN Business)A new report from the World Economic Forum estimates that attaining global gender parity will take nearly 136 years, up from its previous estimate of almost 100 years. WEF measures parity in four ways: economic participation and opportunity, education, health and political empowerment. Data examined by the organization showed that the gap in political empowerment has widened significantly since its 2020 report, while economic participation has improved only slightly.