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The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) on Friday announced that it will extend the comment period for interested entities to provide input on possible changes to the credit scoring models used by government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs). NAFCU had written the agency requesting more time to review and comment on the issue.

In December, the FHFA published a request for input on whether to change the current credit score requirements for the GSEs. It is considering four options and has evaluated Classic FICO, FICO 9 and VantageScore 3.0 credit scoring models.

In a letter to FHFA Director Mel Watt on Jan. 26, NAFCU and other trades representing the financial services and housing industries asked for more time to review and comment on the issue because of its complexity.

The groups noted that credit scores are used by various entities and "changes to Enterprise credit score requirements could have widely-felt implications for borrower access to credit, origination costs in the primary mortgage market, the ability to fully analyze and properly price mortgage credit risk, and liquidity in the secondary mortgage market."

The letter also asked that the empirical evaluations of the credit score models being considered be released so stakeholders can better analyze the proposed options; however, the FHFA declined to do so at this time.

Comments are now due to the FHFA by March 30; more information about the agency's request and NAFCU's efforts is available here. Any credit union wishing to amend comments previously submitted to NAFCU through its Regulatory Alert can contact NAFCU Regulatory Affairs Counsel Ann Kossachev (akossachev@nafcu.org).