CREFC Meets with SEC Regarding Its ABS Concept Release
March 10, 2026
Last week, a group of CREFC staff and members met with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Office of Structured Finance (OSF) to discuss our response to the SEC’s Concept Release on Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Disclosures and Enhancements to Asset-Backed Securities Registration.
We noted that securitization remains critical to liquidity and borrower access to capital, but that registered CMBS issuance has declined sharply over the past decade, from 65% of private-label market (2014) to 29% (2024).
Our members shared that regulatory costs and duplicative requirements discourage registration and that we support reforms that lower costs while preserving investor protection:
- Reduce unnecessary or duplicative regulatory burdens;
- Preserve timely, accurate, and decision-useful investor disclosures; and
- Align regulation with how CMBS markets function in practice.
Our specific recommendations focused largely on reporting and disclosure requirements applicable to registered conduit CMBS:
- Restore automatic suspension of Section 15(d) reporting obligations for registered CMBS held of record by less than three hundred persons.
- Change the cadence of significant obligor financial disclosures to reduce undue reporting burden.
- Conform the reporting requirements on Schedule AL to existing disclosure requirements in Item 1111.
We also suggested:
- Reducing the waiting period under Rule 15Ga-2 relating to the filing of third-party due diligence reports prior to pricing.
- Revising Rule 17g-5 to remove the requirement that information provided to an NRSRO rating an Exchange Act ABS be posted to a website. (On November 12, we submitted to the SEC a 17g-5 Petition for Rulemaking.)
CREFC appreciated the opportunity to engage with the SEC’s OSF on its work to rationalize the ABS regulatory framework and better align it with today’s markets.
- We look forward to providing more information in response to the OSF’s questions and responding to the forthcoming SEC proposal that will reflect the comments received on its Concept Release.
Contact Sairah Burki (sburki@crefc.org) with questions.