Washington, D.C., October 18, 2017 – SIFMA today sent a letter to Ginnie Mae expressing its strong support for Ginnie Mae’s recent announcement of a joint Ginnie Mae/VA task force.  This initiative will investigate issues that have been raised by market participants and members of Congress with respect to refinancing of Veterans Affairs loans which are securitized in Ginnie Mae-guaranteed mortgage backed securities.

“We are concerned that these activities negatively impact VA borrowers and believe they have negatively impacted the mutual funds, 401k plans, and other savers invested in Ginnie Mae MBS,” said Kenneth E. Bentsen, Jr., president and CEO of SIFMA.  “We also support Ginnie Mae’s efforts to police the users of the program to ensure that Ginnie Mae and the market understand why significant variations in loan performance occur, and to ensure that actions that harm consumers or the liquidity of the MBS market are stopped as soon as is reasonably possible.”

-30-

SIFMA is the voice of the U.S. securities industry. We represent the broker-dealers, banks and asset managers whose nearly 1 million employees provide access to the capital markets, raising over $2.5 trillion for businesses and municipalities in the U.S., serving clients with over $18.5 trillion in assets and managing more than $67 trillion in assets for individual and institutional clients including mutual funds and retirement plans. SIFMA, with offices in New York and Washington, D.C., is the U.S. regional member of the Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA). For more information, visit http://www.sifma.org.