← Back to ONIT filing summaryOriginal filing text · Part I
Item 3 — Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk
Onity Group Inc. · 10-Q · Q2 FY2026 · Period ended Jun 30, 2026
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Interest Rates
Our principal market risk exposure is the impact of interest rate changes on our mortgage-related assets and commitments, including MSRs, loans held for sale, loans held for sale pooled into HMBS, previously, held for investment, IRLCs and other derivative instruments. In addition, changes in interest rates could materially and adversely affect the amount of escrow and float income, the volume of mortgage loan originations or result in MSR fair value changes. We also have exposure to the effects of changes in interest rates on our floating-rate borrowings, including MSR financing facilities, mortgage warehouse facilities and advance financing facilities.
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Our management-level Market Risk Committee establishes and maintains policies that govern our risk appetite and associated hedging programs, including such factors as duration and interest rate sensitivity measures, limits, targeted hedge coverage ratios, the hedge instruments that we are permitted to use in our hedging activities, and the counterparties with whom we are permitted to enter into hedging transactions and our liquidity risk profile. See Note 15 – Derivative Financial Instruments and Hedging Activities to the Unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements for additional information regarding our use of derivatives.
MSR Hedging Strategy
MSRs are carried at fair value with changes in fair value being recorded in earnings in the period in which the changes occur. The fair value of MSRs is subject to changes in market interest rates, among other inputs and assumptions. MSR interest rate risk includes the changes in level, slope or shape of yield curves, spreads, volatility and prepayments. While we economically mitigate the short-term prepayment risk of our MSR portfolio through recapture, we remained exposed to MSR fair value volatility.
The objective of our MSR interest rate risk management and hedging policy is to protect shareholders’ equity and earnings against the fair value volatility of interest-rate sensitive MSR portfolio exposure, considering market, liquidity, cost and other conditions. The interest-rate sensitive MSR portfolio exposure is defined as follows:
•Agency MSR portfolio,
•expected Agency MSR bulk transactions subject to letters of intent (LOI),
•less the Agency MSRs subject to our sale agreements that do not qualify for sale accounting, also referred to as Pledged MSR liabilities (See Note 8 — MSR Related Financing Liabilities, at Fair Value),
•less the asset value for securitized HECM loans, net of the corresponding HMBS-related borrowings (also referred to as HECM or reverse MSR for risk management purposes),
•other interest-rate sensitive exposures, including our ESS financing liabilities, as deemed appropriate by the Market Risk Committee.
The hedge coverage ratio, defined as the ratio of hedge (including reverse MSR) to asset rate sensitivity (referred to as DV01) is subject to lower and upper target thresholds under our policy. We regularly evaluate the hedge coverage ratio at the intended shock interval to determine if it is relevant or warrants adjustment based on market conditions, symmetry of interest rate risk exposure, liquidity impacts under shock scenarios, and other factors. As the market dictates, management may choose to maintain the hedge coverage ratio at different thresholds, with approval of the Market Risk Committee, in order to preserve liquidity, improve hedge effectiveness and/or optimize asset returns.
Effective December 2023, we established a targeted hedge coverage ratio range between 95% and 105%. In April 2024, we changed the risk measure to a dollar DV01 that resulted in an equivalent range of approximately 90% to 110%. In May 2025, we established a new targeted hedge coverage ratio of 85% with a range between 80% and 100%. The targeted ratio was increased to a range of 95% to 100%, effective end of October 2025, which was revised to a range of 95% to 105% effective beginning of February 2026. Also refer to the sensitivity analysis below.
The changes in fair value of our hedging instruments may not fully offset the changes in fair value of our net MSR portfolio exposure attributable to interest rate changes. In addition, while interest rate sensitivity measures (DV01) may remain within the range of our hedging strategy’s objective, actual changes in fair value of the derivatives and MSR portfolio may not offset to the same extent, due to many factors. These factors include non-parallel changes in the interest rate curve, the convexity of the MSR, the basis risk inherent in the MSR profile and hedging instruments, model risk observed between actual vs. expected fair value changes, and hedge costs.
We continuously evaluate the use of hedging instruments with the objective of enhancing the effectiveness of our interest rate hedging strategy.
Our derivative instruments include forward trades of MBS or Agency TBAs with different banking counterparties, exchange-traded interest rate futures and options. These derivative instruments are not designated as accounting hedges. TBAs, or To-Be-Announced securities are actively traded, forward contracts to purchase or sell Agency MBS on a specific future date. From time to time, we enter into exchange-traded options contracts with purchased put options financed by written call options. We report changes in fair value of these derivative instruments in MSR valuation adjustments, net in our consolidated statements of operations, within the Servicing segment.
Effective October 2025, without changing our interest rate risk management objective and procedures, our HECM MSR is now hedged with dedicated third-party derivative instruments, whose fair value changes are presented within Gain on reverse loans and HMBS-related borrowings, net in our consolidated statements of operations, within the Servicing segment.
The derivative instruments are subject to margin requirements, posted as either initial or variation margin. Onity may be required to post or may be entitled to receive cash collateral with its counterparties through margin calls, based on daily value
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changes of the instruments. Changes in market factors, including interest rates, and our credit rating may require us to post additional cash collateral and could have a material adverse impact on our financial condition and liquidity.
Reverse Loans Pooled into HMBS and HMBS-related Borrowings
The fair value of our reverse mortgage loans held for sale or held for investment pooled into HMBS generally decreases as market interest rates rise and increases as market rates fall. As our HECM loan portfolio is predominantly comprised of ARMs, higher interest rates cause the loan balance to accrue and reach a 98% maximum claim amount liquidation event more quickly, with lower interest rates extending the timeline to liquidation. Additionally, portfolio value is heavily influenced by market spreads for fixed and discount margin for ARMs.
The fair value of our securitized HECM loan portfolio net of the fair value of the HMBS-related borrowings represents a reverse mortgage economic MSR (HMSR) for risk management purposes. HECM loans have a longer duration than HMBS-related borrowings as a result of the future draw commitments, and our obligations as issuer of HMBS to purchase loans out of the Ginnie Mae securitization pools once the outstanding principal balance of the related HECM loan is equal to 98% of the maximum claim amount. This HMSR exposure is used as a partial offset to our forward MSR exposure and managed as part of our MSR hedging strategy through September 2025, as described above.
Pipeline Hedging Strategy - Loans Held for Sale and IRLCs
In our Originations business, we are exposed to interest rate risk and related price risk during the period from the date of the interest rate lock commitment through (i) the lock commitment cancellation or expiration date or (ii) through the date of sale or securitization of the resulting loan into the secondary mortgage market. Loan commitments for forward loans generally range from 5 to 75 days, with the majority of our commitments to borrowers for 40 to 60 days and our commitments to correspondent sellers for 5 to 30 days. Loans held for sale are generally funded and sold within 5 to 30 days. This interest rate exposure of loans and IRLCs is economically hedged with derivative instruments, including forward sales of Agency TBAs and to a lesser extent 3-year and 5-year swap futures. The objective of our pipeline hedging strategy is to reduce the volatility of the fair value of IRLCs and loans due to market interest rates, thus preserving the initial gain on sale margin at lock date. The net daily market risk position of net pull-though adjusted locks and loans held for sale, less the offsetting hedges of the pipeline, is monitored daily and its daily limit is +/- 5%. Actual fair value changes of derivatives may not fully offset fair value changes of IRLCs and loans due to many factors including basis risk or market volatility. We report changes in fair value of these derivative instruments as gain or loss on economic hedge instruments within either Gain on loans held for sale, net or Gain on reverse loans and HMBS-related borrowings, net in our consolidated statements of operations.
EBO and Loan Modification Hedging – Loans Held for Sale, at fair value
In our Servicing business, we hedge certain Ginnie Mae EBO loans repurchased out of securitization pools for modification and reperformance with TBAs to manage the interest rate risk while these loans await redelivery.
Advance Match Funded Liabilities
We monitor the effect of changes in interest rates on the interest paid on our variable-rate advance financing debt. Earnings on cash and float balances are a partial offset to our exposure to changes in interest expense.
Sensitivity Analysis
Fair Value MSRs, Loans Held for Sale, Reverse Loans Held for Investment pooled into HMBS and Related Derivatives
We assess and manage our interest rate risk on a daily basis primarily using sensitivity analyses. We develop sensitivity analyses to determine the impact on our earnings and financial condition across various interest rate scenarios that could be expected over different time horizons. Our interest rate exposure spans from overnight rates to 30-year rates, with increased sensitivity related to the 5-, 10-, and 30-year rates. Sensitivity analyses are based on hypothetical change in values of different interest-rate sensitive assets and liabilities together with our hedges and are presented under a set instantaneous +/- 25, +/- 50 and +/- 100 basis point parallel move in rates. Changes in fair value cannot be extrapolated because the relationship to the change in fair value may not be linear and other factors may apply, such as change in yield, spreads or other assumptions.
The following table summarizes the estimated change in the fair value of our MSRs, reverse loans held for investment pooled into HMBS and loans held for sale that we have elected to carry at fair value as well as any related derivatives, given hypothetical instantaneous parallel shift in the yield curves and based on our hedge coverage ratio as of June 30, 2026. These sensitivities are hypothetical and presented for illustrative purposes only. Changes in fair value based on variations in assumptions generally cannot be extrapolated because the relationship to the change in fair value may not be linear, among other factors. The net fair value impact due to hypothetical interest rate shocks in the below table reflects the risk management and hedging discipline we maintain, including the targeted, highly effective hedge coverage of our MSR, pipeline and reverse MSR exposures. We evaluate our exposure and hedges on a daily basis and rebalance our positions as warranted by market
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conditions and as we deem necessary. For example, if rates were to significantly increase, we may change our hedge profile to reduce our targeted total net exposure in upward rate scenarios, as illustrated in the below table.
Change in Fair Value Due to Hypothetical Interest Rate Changes
Down 100 bps Down 50 bps Down 25 bps Up 25 bps Up 50 bps Up 100 bps
Asset value of securitized HECM loans, net of HMBS-related borrowing 7 4 2 (2) (4) (8)
Reverse loans held for investment pooled into HMBS - Unsecuritized HECM loans and tails — — — — — —
Loans held for sale 83 52 29 (34) (73) (165)
Derivative instruments 142 60 26 (20) (35) (48)
Total MSRs - Agency and non-Agency (200) (114) (58) 54 101 159
IRLCs (11) (6) (3) 3 6 11
Total, net exposure $ 21 $ (6) $ (4) $ 1 $ (5) $ (51)
Borrowings
The majority of the collateralized debt used to finance our operations is based on variable rates but remains exposed to interest rate fluctuations between repricing dates. Our corporate debt and reverse mortgage securitization notes are based on fixed interest rates. As servicer, we are also exposed to the impact of interest rate fluctuations on the float income we earn on balances held in trust from the date a loan payment is received from borrowers to the date funds are forwarded to investors.
Based on June 30, 2026 balances, if interest rates were to decrease by 100 bps (hypothetical instantaneous parallel shift in the yield curves), we estimate a net positive impact on our annual profitability of approximately $3 million resulting from a decrease of $36 million in annual interest income and other credits on cash deposits and float balances, and a decrease of $39 million in annual interest expense on our variable-rate debt.