MISMO releases securities sale bidding template

The Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization has developed a mortgage-backed securities bidding template, citing the need for standardization of the data exchange between originators and broker dealers.

The Bids Wanted in Competition standard template, or BWIC for short, has achieved candidate status, meaning it was reviewed by a wide range of organizations and industry participants and is now available for use, MISMO, a subsidiary of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said in a press release.

An increasing number of mortgage originators are electing to use a securitization strategy and then selling those bonds. While BWICs, which are the formal request to dealers to make bids on a securities package, are a part of the landscape, the information transmitted had heretofore not been standardized.

Those dealers are struggling to keep up with the increased volume of BWICs, and the lack of standardization is contributing to delays, lower pricing and fewer participants in the process, MISMO claimed.

As a result, a MISMO BWIC Development Work Group was created last November to develop a homogenous or standardized format for these requests in an Excel format.

MISMO first asked for public comment on the standard in August and followed it up with a request for member reaction earlier this month.

“The creation of this data standard will allow MBS sellers to consistently present BWIC data to dealer desks to facilitate increased accuracy, liquidity, and rapid pricing by the dealers for the BWIC lists,” said Seth Appleton, MISMO president, in the press release. “Development of this tool is part of MISMO’s ongoing efforts to increase efficiency across the mortgage finance industry.”