Ginnie Mae [1] has announced that issuance of its mortgage-backed securities (MBS) totaled $60.046 billion in October. October's issuances, includes $57.450 billion of Ginnie Mae II MBS and $2.596 billion of Ginnie Mae I MBS, which includes $1.737 billion of loans for multifamily housing.
Ginnie Mae's total outstanding principal balance of $2.101 trillion is an increase from $2.019 trillion in October 2018. Ginnie Mae [2] investors purchased a record $32 billion of Platinum Securities spread across 217 pools in the fiscal year that ended September 30. Platinum Securities volume in fiscal year 2018 was approximately $20 billion.
Ginnie Mae Platinum Securities are issued through the Ginnie Mae Multiclass Securities Program and, according to Ginnie Mae, "provide investors of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) with greater market and operating efficiencies."
Investors who hold multiple pools of MBS can combine new or existing MBS into a single Ginnie Mae Platinum Certificate. Once a Ginnie Mae Platinum Certificate has been created, it can be used in structured finance transactions, repurchase transactions and general trading.
"The record volume caps a strong year for the Ginnie Mae Platinum program," Ginnie Mae said in a statement.
In April, Ginnie Mae introduced a Platinum product for Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECMs), known as HMBS, part of the modernization of Ginnie Mae’s Platinum Securities Program. Investors can create Platinum products using fixed-rate MBS (15- and 30-year mortgages); Weighted Average Coupon (WAC) Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) and Jumbo Only Fixed mortgages.
"The market adoption of the modernized process for Platinum products has been strong: prior to modernization, fiscal year 2017 production of Platinum securities with fixed-rate collateral was only $7.88 billion," Ginnie Mae noted. "Following modernization and automation inside the new MyGinnieMae portal, volume grew to more than $20 billion in fiscal year 2018."