On the heels of news that it could soon go “public,” Fannie Mae has launched a partnership with artificial intelligence firm Palantir.
The mortgage behemoth has announced the Crime Detection Unit, an AI-powered tool created along with Palantir. According to a press release, the program will expand Fannie Mae’s fraud prevention capabilities using AI-enabled financial crimes data and investigations technology.
The idea is to help prevent mortgage fraud.
“No one is above the law,” Fannie Mae Chairman William Pulte said in a release. “In partnership with Palantir, Fannie Mae’s Crime Detection Unit will increase safety and soundness by rooting out bad actors in our housing system. This cutting-edge AI technology will help us find anyone who tries to defraud our system.”
At the same time, President Donald Trump stood firm on his calls to sell Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying the U.S. government would keep its “implicit guarantees” to back the companies if needed. The companies are federally backed and publicly traded, but Trump’s call to make them “public” implies an end to the government conservatorship.
“I will stay strong in my position on overseeing them as President,” he wrote. “These Agencies are now doing very well, and will help us to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
During a Tuesday morning press conference, Pulte said that details will be left up to the president, saying Trump will decide “when, or if, or how” the agencies go public. But he stressed that the government would remain in control of Fannie and Freddie.
“[Trump] would be continuing to oversee this,” Pulte said, predicting the companies could eventually be worth more than $1 trillion.
The AI partnership could be expanded to include Freddie Mac if it goes well at Fannie Mae, he added.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back trillions of dollars in home loans. They do not issue loans themselves but instead buy mortgages from banks and then package them into securities that are sold to big investors such as pension funds, insurers, and hedge funds.
While they already operate mortgage theft prevention programs, the partnership with Palantir aims to improve speed and precision to save taxpayer dollars through improved fraud prevention.
“By integrating this leading AI technology, we will look across millions of datasets to detect patterns that were previously undetectable,” Fannie Mae President and CEO Priscilla Almodovar said. “This new partnership will combat mortgage fraud, saving money for lenders, homebuyers, and taxpayers.”
Fannie Mae’s asset portfolio tops $4.3 trillion, making it the largest owner of outstanding residential mortgage debt in the country. It holds roughly 1 in 4 single-family home mortgages.
“This partnership with Fannie Mae will set off a revolution in how we combat mortgage fraud in this country,” Palantir Technologies CEO Alex Karp said. “We are bringing the fight directly to anyone who attempts to defraud our mortgage system and exploit hardworking Americans.”
Why Trump wants to sell mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
The AI news comes as Trump pushes to take Fannie and Freddie private, as the pair could be worth $300 billion or more.
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are doing very well, throwing off a lot of CASH, and the time would seem to be right,” Trump wrote last week on Truth Social. “Stay tuned!”
The prospect of a financial windfall has revived Trump’s interest, and most conservatives believe that government control of Fannie and Freddie, which took place amid the 2008 financial crisis, should never have lasted 17 years.
Pulte, the 37-year-old grandson of a real estate mega-developer, has set his sights on changing and modernizing the agencies. He dubbed the pair “obese” and said he wants to put them “on the treadmill.”
