11.18.20
On Wednesday, November 18, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released its final capital rule that establishes a new regulatory framework for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The proposed rule was a re-proposal of the capital framework first proposed in 2018 based on the Conservatorship Capital Framework that was implemented by the FHFA in 2017. Some significant changes from the June version of the proposed rule include “increased capital relief for credit risk transfers, reduced capital requirements for single-family mortgage exposures subject to COVID-19 related forbearance; and increased the exposure level risk-weight floor for single-family and multifamily mortgage exposures to 20 percent.” SFA previously submitted a letter to FHFA on an earlier version of their proposed GSE capital rule.