Name referring to the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA). Originally created in 1983, the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), or ‘‘Fannie Mae,’’ is the oldest of the three mortgage-backed security sponsoring agencies. While it is now a private corporation owned by shareholders with stock traded on major exchanges, in the minds of many investors it still has implicit government backing that makes it equivalent to a government- sponsored agency. Indeed, supporting this view is the fact that FNMA has a secured line of credit available from the US Treasury should it need funds in an emergency. FNMA is a more active agency than Government National Mortgage Association (GNMA) in creating passthrough securities. GNMA merely sponsors such programs. FNMA actually helps create passthroughs by buying and holding mortgages on its balance sheet; it also issues bonds directly to finance those purchases.