Fannie Mae Gives Mortgage Data to HUD

Fannie Mae, the leading financier of U.S. home mortgages, said that it gave the Department of Housing and Urban Development closely held data about its computerized mortgage underwriting system. HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo and other housing advocates have criticized the system, Desktop Underwriter, and the Loan Prospector system of rival lender Freddie Mac, saying certain criteria that involve people with low incomes and poor credit histories may disproportionately affect minorities. HUD had threatened to take enforcement action, including a civil fine, against Fannie Mae if it did not submit by Monday detailed information about its the loan approval system. Fannie Mae said it received assurance from HUD that some of the information vital to its competitiveness would be kept from the public. That concern had been a key sticking point keeping Fannie Mae from disclosing the data earlier. Fannie Mae sent HUD data on 12.4 million mortgage applications that its automated underwriting system processed, spokesman David Jeffers said.