MORTGAGE CHANGES: The Treasury Department announced Friday that it is changing the terms of its support agreement with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two institutions that were taken over by the government in 2008.

NEW POLICIES: The new procedures will require the mortgage giants to shrink their holdings more quickly, reducing them to $250 billion by 2018, four years earlier than planned. It will also require payment to the government of all quarterly profits the companies earn.

MIXED REACTION: While financial industry groups were generally supportive of the changes, Republicans in Congress complained that the changes could blunt efforts at more sweeping reforms of the two institutions that back more than half of all U.S. mortgages.