What GSE Reporting Changes Mean for Servicers

Matt Dowd is vice president of product management for the mortgage technology division at ICE, holding more than 25 years of software industry experience. He leads product strategy across ICE’s servicing and default technology solutions, helping shape a unified vision spanning the mortgage lifecycle.

The mortgage servicing industry is in the early stages of a multi-year compliance transformation that will touch nearly all operational systems servicers rely on, and the window for comfortable preparation is closing.

Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are retiring their legacy batch reporting models and moving to event-driven, near-real-time data submissions. For servicers managing both GSE portfolios, that means two overlapping sets of requirements, two distinct timelines and one narrow runway to get systems ready before penalties kick in.

Servicers that haven’t yet mapped their data gaps, engaged their vendors or begun API testing should treat this as a priority. System integrations typically require 6 to 12 months of development and testing before go-live, and the amnesty windows built into these rollouts are expiring.

Fannie Mae: Phased Changes Through 2028

Fannie Mae outlined its plans in Lender Letter LL-2025-02, which unfolds in three phases.

By the end of 2026, servicers must be fully operational under new escrow reporting requirements that, for the first time ever, require them to report specific escrow-related events directly to Fannie Mae, including initial escrow setup, deposits and disbursements and account closure. A testing window opened in the second quarter of 2026, giving servicers a limited but important runway to validate systems and workflows before the requirement becomes mandatory.

Default reporting changes follow in 2027, when servicers must shift from monthly default loan submission to near-real-time event reporting — a fundamental change in both cadence and operational approach.

The third phase, effective in 2028, addresses financial reporting and remittances. Where servicers have historically submitted daily reports as cumulative month-to-date snapshots, the new requirement calls for daily reporting in which only new transactions are submitted. For Actual/Actual mortgage loans, Fannie Mae will also begin automatically drafting principal and interest remittance amounts from servicers’ custodial accounts two business days after payment processing events are reported. This eliminates monthly shortage and surplus reconciliations, but requires precise, timely data submission.

Running across all three phases is an expanded data requirement aligned with MISMO guidelines, designed to improve Fannie Mae’s data consistency and risk management capabilities.

Freddie Mac: EDR Retirement and Move to Resolve

Freddie Mac’s initiative, announced in May 2026 as part of its Servicing Technology Roadmap, focuses on default reporting. The agency is retiring its Electronic Default Reporting (EDR) tool in the fourth quarter of 2027 and transitioning all servicers to an event-based model through Resolve, its default management platform.

Rather than reporting prior-month default and bankruptcy activity retrospectively within the first three business days of a new month, servicers will submit default events as they occur, including quality right-party contact, foreclosure milestones and bankruptcy filings. EDR’s existing action and status codes will be retired and replaced by event data fields that provide greater detail.

API specifications for the new Resolve Default Reporting capability will be published in the third quarter of 2026, along with access to a customer test environment. The API and non-API file transfer capability goes live in the fourth quarter of 2026, followed by a user interface option in the first quarter of 2027. The EDR tool will then retire in the fourth quarter of 2027. The availability of three integration approaches — API, file transfer and user interface — reflects Freddie Mac’s awareness that servicers operate with varied technology stacks and capacities.

What Servicers Need in their Technology Platforms

These changes cannot be absorbed through process adjustments alone and require corresponding technology upgrades.

For escrow, servicing technology must support real-time event configuration and automated data capture when each event occurs. For default reporting under both GSEs, near-real-time detection is paramount as the servicing technology must identify a qualifying event as it occurs across collections, loss mitigation, foreclosure or bankruptcy workflows and route it immediately for reporting. For Fannie Mae’s 2028 financial reporting changes, systems must be capable of isolating individual daily transactions and validating them independently, with reconciliation tools that confirm completeness daily rather than allowing errors to compound over a month.

Across all areas, unified dashboards, audit trails and automated exception management will be necessary to maintain visibility and demonstrate compliance. Critically, servicers managing both GSE portfolios need technology that can configure reporting workflows specific to each agency’s requirements: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have distinct event taxonomies, data schemas and submission channels.

Platforms built around investor-driven compliance, like MSP^®, ICE’s loan servicing system, are designed for exactly this kind of change. ICE maintains close working relationships with both agencies, allowing its teams to monitor emerging requirements, interpret their operational implications and build enhancements well ahead of deadlines.

The GSEs have given servicers advance notice and have offered testing environments to ease the transition. But the window for comfortable preparation is narrowing, and those that treat these changes as near-term priorities will be best positioned to meet the deadlines without operational disruption or compliance risk.

(Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect policies of the Mortgage Bankers Association, nor do they connote an MBA endorsement of a specific company, product or service. MBA NewsLink welcomes submissions from member firms. Inquiries can be sent to Editor Michael Tucker or Editorial Manager Anneliese Mahoney.)