The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the regulator and manager of government-owned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is poised to start to restructure the secondary mortgage market whether credit unions, banks or legislators are ready or not.

FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco described some of the new market structure that the agency envisions to replace Fannie and Freddie in March 4 remarks before the National Association for Business Economics in Washington.

"We believe that setting up a new structure that is separate from the two companies is important for building a new secondary mortgage market infrastructure," DeMarco outlined in his prepared remarks. "Our objective, as we stated last year, is for the platform to be able to function like a market utility, as opposed to rebuilding the proprietary infrastructures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. To make this clear, I expect that the new venture will be headed by a CEO and chairman of the board that are independent from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It will also be physically located separate from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Importantly, we plan on instituting a formal structure to allow for input from industry participants."