GSE-060922
Equitable Endeavors
When Sandra Thompson earlier this year enunciated a new equitable-finance mission, we forecast that Fannie and Freddie would undertake an array of new activities that significantly expand their footprint along with their equity and equality impact. As anticipated, the plans announced yesterday by Fannie and Freddie go beyond FHFA’s reiterated mission statement earlier this week, mirroring in some ways the banking agencies’ broad view of CRA as a community-development and racial-equity instrument as well as the boost to LMI housing on which attention long focused. But, for all the public-good creds these plans engender, several will doubtless promote market angst as the GSEs launch pilots that tread heavily on MI, title-insurer, and servicer toes.