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Article: Competition for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Could the colossal mortgage GSEs begin taking even greater risks than they already are?(Banking & Finance)
- Article from:
- Regulation
- Article date:
- September 22, 2004
- Author:
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THE FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) are the two dominant entities in the finance of residential mortgages. Their rapid growth in the 1990s began attracting political attention earlier this decade. An increase in Fannie Mae's exposure to interest rate risk in 2002, followed by a widely reported accounting scandal at Freddie Mac in 2003, sharpened political concerns about the strength of the regulatory regime that surrounds the two entities.
Less widely recognized are two emerging and potentially powerful sources of new competition for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: an expanded mortgage ...