Changing the terms of the contract without explicit approval from both sides is beyond sketchy. At minimum, it's an unapproved amendment and therefore doesn't a

Changing the terms of the contract without explicit approval from both sides is beyond sketchy. At minimum, it's an unapproved amendment and therefore doesn't apply. At worst, it's a new contact that at least one side didn't agree to and therefore doesn't apply. It looks like people agreed without understanding the details. In this case, I'd wager by lowering the payments, less loans were "risky" and therefore their assets look better. That probably was for the benefit of repackaging those "assets" and/or better guarantees from the Fed.