Fannie Mae

The Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), commonly known as Fannie Mae, is a United States government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) that has been a publicly traded company since 1968. Founded in 1938 during the Great Depression as part of the New Deal, the corporation was established to expand the secondary mortgage market. It does this by securitizing mortgage loans into mortgage-backed securities (MBS), which allows lenders to reinvest their assets into additional lending. This process effectively increases the number of mortgage lenders by reducing reliance on local savings and loan associations (or "thrifts").