The last financial crisis occurred in part because unregulated lending in the mortgage market got out of hand. Believe it or not, it’s starting to happen again, and could ultimately precipitate another disaster unless regulators get their act together.
Make no mistake, regulators have done plenty to rein in the mortgage business since the 2000s. New rules require that lenders carefully assess borrowers’ ability to pay, and that mortgage servicers - which process payments and manage other relations with borrowers - give troubled customers plenty of opportunity to renegotiate their debts before resorting to foreclosure. The Federal Reserve performs regular stress tests to ensure that banks have enough capital to weather defaults.
The problem is, the requirements have weighed most heavily on traditional, deposit-taking banks. The added hand-holding required in mortgage servicing, for example, has roughly quadrupled the cost of handling delinquent loans, turning them into major loss-makers. Together with stringent capital requirements, this has all but guaranteed that banks will lend only to people with the most pristine credit. In some cases, they have given up the business entirely: late last year, Capital One announced it was exiting mortgage origination because it was “structurally disadvantaged".
So who has the advantage? Well, much of the regulation doesn’t apply to non-bank lenders, which typically originate mortgages and quickly sell them onward to be packaged into securities for investors. These “shadow banks” don’t take deposits, don’t have much capital and are usually overseen by state banking authorities, which tend to be less stringent. They are also considerably more aggressive than their bank counterparts.
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The nonbanks’ growth has been breathtaking. At the end of 2016, such unaffiliated mortgage companies accounted for more than 40 per cent of new conventional mortgages (those eligible for sale to government-controlled guarantors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), twice the share they accounted for just eight years earlier. They’re also responsible for a decline in credit standards: the average FICO score (a measure of consumer credit risk) at origination stood at 730 at the end of 2017, down from 750 five years earlier. For loans guaranteed by the Federal Housing Administration - an area where the nonbanks’ share is greatest - the average FICO score has fallen to 680.
The shift has been even more extreme in mortgage servicing. Nonbanks now service about 51 per cent of all loans packaged into new Freddie Mac securities, according to mortgage analytics firm Recursion. That’s more than double the share of just five years ago. For securitised FHA loans, the share stands at a staggering 83 per cent. Again, banks are leaving the business: last year, CitiMortgage announced it would exit by the end of this year, transferring the servicing rights for about 780,000 mortgages.
What accounts for the nonbanks’ appetite? They might argue that their processes and technologies give them greater confidence in their underwriting. But one can’t ignore the reality that, thanks to relative lax regulation, they also have less at stake. By operating with less capital, they can reap very large returns in good times. In bad times, however, they might not have the capacity to withstand losses or deal with the servicing burden created by widespread delinquencies. As a result, a large swathe of the country’s lending and servicing system could implode when the next crisis hits.
The only solution is to level the regulatory playing field between the banks and the nonbanks. This means raising capital requirements for the latter, and subjecting them to stress tests. Difficult as this might sound, the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation actually created an institution tailor-made to handle such systemic issues: the Financial Stability Oversight Council. The council should put nonbank mortgage lenders at the top of its agenda this year.
Granted, reining in the nonbank lenders could tighten mortgage credit overall, at a time when it hasn’t been particularly loose by historical standards. At a market peak, though, this might not be a bad thing. And there’s plenty that regulators can do to get traditional bank credit flowing without threatening safety and soundness – such as dispelling some of the uncertainties and complications involved in selling loans to Fannie and Freddie and in servicing loans for the FHA.
Immense public resources have been mobilised to prevent a repeat of the mortgage crisis. It would be a shame if those protections amounted to no more than a Maginot Line.
Richard Koss is an economic and real estate consultant and adjunct professor at the Carey School of Business at Johns Hopkins University
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
How to help
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UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
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Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
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Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
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Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
