Responding to Changing Market Conditions

Challenge:
The mortgage industry experienced another record-breaking year in 2021 spurred by low interest rates and skyrocketing demand for new homes. This resulted in increasing volume demands on CSS as mortgage originations and mortgage-backed securities hit record numbers. On top of record volumes, CSS, working with the Government-Sponsored Enterprises (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) made continual improvements and technology enhancements to ensure that the Enterprises’ mortgage loan refinance programs continued to provide necessary help to homeowners during the pandemic.

Solution:
CSS’s Common Securitization Platform, which administers $6 trillion in agency mortgage-backed securities, kept pace with record volumes while providing critical support for relief programs that kept families in homes and supported the post-COVID economic recovery. Built on cloud technology, the Common Securitization Platform was designed to handle such changing market conditions in real-time; the platform is scalable, flexible, and adaptable. In 2021, CSS settled more than 11,000 wires per month (a 28% increase YoY) and administered 30 million loans on the platform with an Unpaid Principal Balance of $6 trillion. Routinely issuing ~$300 billion in new securities monthly in 2020, those volumes jumped to more than $380 billion monthly in 2021 (a total of $4.6 trillion in new issuance for the year). CSS handled more volume while providing critical support for homeownership relief programs including ReFi Now and ReFi Possible and while introducing enhanced functionality for greater ease of use and transparency for investors. Even with these unprecedented volumes, CSS exceeded its target performance for 2021.