The main difference between them is that Fannie Mae buys mortgage loans from major retail or commercial banks, while Freddie Mac obtains its loans from smaller banks. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are both publicly traded GSEs.The role of Freddie Mac is to buy a large number of loans from mortgage lenders, then combine them and sell them as mortgage-backed securities.Freddie Mac is a stockholder-owned, government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) chartered by Congress in 1970 in support of homeownership for middle-income Americans.Freddie Mac is the officially recognized nickname for the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.