This week, the FDIC released the agenda for an August 28, 2013 Board Meeting at which the Board will consider the re-proposal of a rule to implement the credit risk retention requirements of the Dodd-Frank Act, including provisions regarding “qualified residential mortgages” or QRMs. The FDIC and other federal banking and housing agencies originally proposed a rule in April 2011 that would have required sponsors of asset-backed securities (ABS) to retain at least five percent of the credit risk of the assets underlying the securities. Exemptions to the proposed rule included U.S. government-guaranteed ABS and mortgage-backed securities that are collateralized exclusively by residential mortgages that qualify as QRMs. The proposed rule would have established a definition of QRMs incorporating criteria designed to ensure that such QRMs were of very high credit quality, including a 20% down payment requirement or a requirement that the borrower’s debt-to-income ratio not exceed 36%. It recently has been reported that, in response to overwhelming objections from industry participants, the re-proposed rule will loosen those standards and align the QRM definition with the CFPB’s qualified mortgage or QM definition.