Mortgage insurer Genworth is confident that mortgage lenders are not lowering their standards as they fight for share in a highly competitive housing finance market.Genworth chief executive Ellie Comerford said she saw a lot of commentary about deteriorating standards but from where she stood it was not happening.Comerford said commentators tended to focus on rate cutting and discounting, as well as on the number of loans being sold with high loan-to-valuation ratios."The issue of lending standards is not about pricing," she said."In a relatively slow credit growth environment price comes into play. But price is a function of funding cost."As to LVRs, the evidence is mixed. According to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, 34.8 per cent of new housing loans approved in the March quarter had LVRs above 80 per cent. This is higher than the December quarter, when the proportion was 34.2 per cent, and the March quarter last year, when it was 34.4 per cent.However, the proportion of new housing loans with LVRs above 90 per cent has come down from 14.7 per cent in the March quarter last year to 13.55 per cent in December and 13.5 per cent in the March quarter this year.Comerford said: "We do quality control on the loans we underwrite. As part of our due diligence we look at the lender's policies, processes, technology and systems. "We look at their credit scoring methodology and their property valuation techniques."From an underwriting point of view debt servicing and security are the key issues. We see little evidence of standards falling. There is no undue pressure on lenders. We see orderly business," she said."APRA talks about this issue but it likes to get ahead of the curve."