Ginnie Mae President Alanna McCargo delivered a keynote address at the Barclays U.S. Rates and Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities (RMBS) Conference in Tokyo, Japan, addressing Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities (MBS) potential value for investors and the company’s recently expanded social impact and sustainability work.
“As I travel around the world, one thing is clear: global investors want more impact investment opportunities,” McCargo said during her speech.
Speaking to an audience comprised primarily of global asset managers and investors on Thursday, McCargo addressed the macroeconomic trends currently playing out in the mortgage market as well as performance information related to the Ginnie Mae MBS program.
She also used the speech to serve as a wider introduction to investors for its recently-announced expansion of its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) labeling to single-family MBS, comprised of a social bond update to its single-family forward MBS program and its social impact and sustainability framework.
“These enhancements highlight the structural aspects of Ginnie Mae’s mission and program, which drive broader access to mortgage financing and affordable homeownership and rental opportunities for historically underserved communities,” the company said in a statement. “President McCargo also discussed Ginnie Mae’s social and green bond disclosures, which provide reliable data for investors looking for impact investing opportunities.”
McCargo explained that the appetite for such investments extends beyond the borders of the U.S. and that the new program updates provide investors with an opportunity they have long sought.
“Since its founding 55 years ago, Ginnie Mae has been a social impact company. Along with our MBS pool-level disclosure data, our new social bond update and impact framework represent powerful tools for investors who want to direct capital in support of broader access to affordable credit and housing for American households in underserved communities,” McCargo said.
The value proposition of the Ginnie Mae MBS program remains a unique differentiator for investors, she said, and now that proposition can be coupled with the desires of some investors to make an additional impact.
“Ginnie Mae’s unique value proposition remains a significant draw for investors, and paired with the power of our explicit guaranty, our impact work can drive additional global investment into the communities and households we serve,” she told the audience at the event.
In an interview last week with HousingWire, McCargo stressed that determinations of social impact will be left to the investors and will not be made by Ginnie Mae itself.
“Something that we’ve always been doing all along in terms of the borrowers that we support through the Ginnie Mae program is now much more clear and transparent so investors understand and know the social impact elements in their bonds,” she said last week. “And I think it’s important to say that we don’t determine if it’s social impact, investors do. But we’re making all the tools and all the data available to them to be able to do that.”
