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As leaders in Congress begin to address the issue of housing finance reform, NAFCU today is releasing its core principles that it believes will ensure the safety and soundness of the credit union system and should be included in whatever reform option is ultimately adopted.

First and foremost, NAFCU reiterates the importance of unfettered access to the secondary mortgage market for credit unions with fair pricing based on loan quality as opposed to volume.

"Credit unions play a vital part in today's mortgage market by providing high-quality loans and increasing their members' access to credit," said NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger. "NAFCU believes that these core principles must be retained in any housing finance reform package, along with a healthy and sustainable secondary mortgage market that provides equal access to lenders of all sizes."

Along with maintaining a sustainable secondary mortgage market, among other tenets, NAFCU's core principles for housing finance reform also include:

• an explicit government guarantee on the payment of principal and interest on mortgage-backed securities;
• self-funded government-sponsored enterprises without any dedicated government appropriations;
• the creation of a Federal Housing Finance Agency board of advisors;
• allowance for the GSEs to rebuild their capital buffers;
• the Federal Home Loan Banks remaining a central part of the mortgage market; and
• credit risk transactions being expanded and the Common Securitization Platform and the Single Security retained.

These principles are being shared with all members of Congress and other interested parties.