Bankers and lenders have joined mounting calls for the government to cease financial support to two of the country’s biggest mortgage finance companies.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) asked the Obama administration to end the conservatorship to the Federal National Mortgage Association and to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. The association said the two companies, which are popularly known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, respectively, should be placed into “receivership” instead.

“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have already moved well beyond the points where any other financial institution would have been put into receivership,” MBA chief executive John Courson and MBA chairman-elect Michael Berman wrote to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, or FHFA. “The current situation is not unlike a brain dead patient who is being kept alive indefinitely by artificial life support,” they added.

The organization also called on the FHFA to clarify the issue regarding the fate of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSE) be put into receivership. According to the MBA, this will enable creditors to know who will be paid if and when such a development occurs.

The two GSEs were put into government conservatorship at the height of the financial crisis in 2008. Data showed that the government presently controls 79.9% of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, just .01% below of the threshold for including them in the federal books.

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