Fannie Mae, the mortgage company, is instructed by its regulator to correct "deficiencies" in its controls over accounting ledgers and other corporate records.

The new requirements include the adoption of policies prohibiting falsified signatures on accounting journal entries and reducing employees’ ability to alter database records.

The latest step by the regulator -- the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, or Ofheo -- illustrates that it has focused on Fannie following an accounting scandal last year.

Fannie’s board also agreed to create an "office of compliance and ethics" and to direct the company’s general counsel to inform directors and regulators of "actual or possible misconduct" at the company, according to the Wall Street Journal.

All directions to the company’s board and management are comprised in an agreement with the regulator, signed by Fannie Mae’s interim chairman, Stephen B. Ashley, and released by Ofheo on March 8. The agreement suggests that Ofheo has found confirmation of Fannie employees violating some basic standards of conduct.

An Ofheo spokeswoman refused to provide any details of such wrongdoing but said the regulator continues its cooperation with the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission in investigating Fannie’s accounting and internal controls.

The agreement requires Fannie to work out a plan for rectifying "deficiencies" in procedures for creating and revising accounting journal entries. Those entries must be "supported by appropriate documentation," the agreement says.

Moreover Fannie agreed to "adopt appropriate internal controls" on any changing of database records by technical-support employees. Those alterations would have to be properly documented.