Industry News

Last week’s MBA CREF conference was more subdued than January’s CMBS-centric CREFC conference. While the mood was cautiously optimistic — and definitely better than last year — the MBA CREF conference lacked the jubilation expressed at CREFC.

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I expected the SEC to release the final Reg AB language before the end of the year, but that did not happen. So, for a final post of the year, I thought I’d highlight steps the industry has taken on its own to improve transparency and investor protections, as well as define CMBS 2.0.

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For the first time in years, CREFC has proposed an increase in data disclosure by proposing a new report, the Loan Modification Report, to be effective Dec. 1, 2010. It isn’t perfect, but it is progress.

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I helped draft letters from CREFC, MBA and MISMO to the SEC commenting on the proposed Regulation AB changes. The letters were filed Aug. 2. While all of them supported the concept of transparency, none of them proposed a data list to actually achieve transparency.

So I also wrote my own letter.

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With great fanfare today, President Obama signed the financial reform bill into law. Many times over the past several months, I thought this legislation would die, but this is a big, important deal. And now the law is clear: Transparency is required for securitized products.

The big question is whether the SEC enacts rules and regulations to actually bring about transparency.

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