Mortgage Rescue Plan Could Look Like IndyMac

She also suggested that the IndyMac program could inspire more loan modifications elsewhere.

"Our hope is that the program we announced at IndyMac Federal will serve as a catalyst to promote more loan modifications for troubled borrowers across the country," she said.

Since the IndyMac takeover, the FDIC has implemented a loan modification plan targeting some 40,000 IndyMac borrowers who were delinquent on their payments or in foreclosure. The plan seeks to modify loans so that a borrower is not spending more than 38 percent of his or her monthly income on loan payments. The modifications include the reduction of interest rates and extending the term of the loan. The modifications are being made only when they prove less costly than allowing a homeowner to enter foreclosure.

Critics have warned that loan modification plans might run afoul of contracts held between mortgage servicers and investors who hold stakes in mortgage securities, but Bair said that that didn't hold true for the IndyMac plan. The contracts, she said, "typically provide servicers with sufficient flexibility to apply the IndyMac Federal loan modification approach."

Bair said that the 3,500 homeowners who had accepted IndyMac loan modication offers thus far saw their monthly loan payments slashed by an average of more than $380.