Andrew Davidson recently joined NFM Lending’s Greg Sher on the One On One podcast to discuss our recent white paper, “The Impact of Moving Away From the Tri-Merge Standard.”

AD&Co recently sponsored and attended SFVegas 2026 and Optimal Blue Summit 2026. This post shares the AD&Co team's unique perspectives and key takeaways from attending both conferences.

AD&Co US Mortgage High Yield Indices

The Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) portal, housed by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, has been publishing AD&Co’s CRT indices since 2019. These series posted under the overall name of “US Mortgage High-Yield” include total return rates and credit and option-adjusted spreads (crOAS) – a projected return’s spread over Treasury (in the past, Libor). These series are available going back to 2014-end and tiered by CRT initial supports.

In July 2025, the US Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced that the government-sponsored entities (the Enterprises or GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, would permit lenders to choose between Classic FICO and VantageScore 4.0 credit score models for loans sold to the GSEs. FHFA also stated in a social media post that the tri-merge standard would be maintained for mortgage underwriting. Nevertheless, some mortgage industry stakeholders recommend moving away from the tri-merge standard for GSE mortgages in favor of a single or bi-merge report standard.

As housing faces more climate threats that result in more losses, the insurance program that it sits on is teetering on the brink of collapse. Yet, the home insurance market has three distinct stakeholders that have competing priorities, and today, there is no motivation for a collaborative solution.

Understanding how to strengthen and protect the current structure requires looking at the cost burdens along with the risk for each of those parties.

There has been a flurry of activity in the mortgage markets since the 2018 passage of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act. This act requires the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA, now known as US Federal Housing) to validate and modernize the credit score models used in the housing finance system. It should be noted that so far, the discourse has been around mortgages sold to the Enterprises (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). Ginnie Mae has not provided any guidance on their plans to start using new credit score models.

Andrew Davidson & Co., Inc (AD&Co) proudly sponsored IMN’s 11th Annual Mortgage Servicing Rights (MSR) Forum by Informa at the New York Hilton Midtown. Senior modeler Daniel Swanson joined the “Managing Delinquencies & Forbearance Value” panel in discussing how servicers are adapting to today’s market and the evolving delinquency trends.

Tune in to our fourth episode of AD&Conversations with Kevin Lin and Eknath Belbase, our product lead for our Climate model. In this episode, they discuss the new Climate Impact Suite (CIS) pilot project, and Belbase outlines several challenges the team is navigating, including:

Tune in to our fourth episode of AD&Conversations with Kevin Lin and Eknath Belbase, our product lead for our Climate model. In this episode, they discuss the new Climate Impact Suite (CIS) pilot project, and Belbase outlines several challenges the team is navigating, including:

Andrew Davidson was invited to speak on Equifax's Market Pulse Podcast titled, "Driving Efficiency and Resilience in the Mortgage Industry" live at the 2025 MBA Annual Convention in Las Vegas. 

Andy explains how variations in data files can distort risk assessment, creating a dual risk for lenders: extending credit to borrowers more likely to default while overcharging customers whose risk is overstated.