Fannie Mae said that it will send the U.S. Treasury $4.4 billion in September, as an interest-rate increase helped fuel a 27 percent rise in second-quarter profits, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Fannie also shed light on the impact of efforts made by the company and the Federal Housing Finance Agency to expand mortgage access to borrowers with lower credit scores and smaller down payments, revealing that the effort is off to a slow start. The company’s second-quarter net income grew to $4.64 billion from $3.67 billion in the same quarter of 2014. Fannie’s big earnings in the second quarter were driven in part by how the company values derivatives used to hedge risks in its portfolio. The rate on a 10-year Treasury note was 2.35 percent at the end of June, up from 1.94 percent at the end of March. However, the company’s net-interest income also rose to $5.68 billion from $4.9 billion a year earlier.
