Dozens of military and veteran groups are urging Acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney not to weaken military lending protections. Thirty-eight groups – including the National Military and Veteran Alliance, the Student Veterans of America, and the Air Force Sergeants Association – in late August sent a letter to Mulvaney and Defense Secretary James Mattis calling for continued strong enforcement and supervision of the Military Lending Act. “We urge you to stand with ...

The CFPB late last month announced 2019 changes in dollar thresholds for several provisions under Regulation Z, implemented under the Truth in Lending Act. The bureau adjusts those amounts annually based on the percentage change reflected in the Consumer Price Index. The adjustments would affect the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act and the ability to ...

The CFPB recently refused to set aside or modify a civil investigative demand filed against a debt collection company, the latest sign that the bureau is being tough in pursuing certain investigations, said attorneys.The CFPB filed two CIDs in 2017 under former Director Richard Cordray against Firstsource Advance regarding debt collection issues. The company then sought to set aside or modify the bureau’s second CID, but the agency denied the petition ...

The CFPB announced that it will hold a day-long symposium, “Building a Bridge to Credit Visibility,” to explore challenges many consumers face in getting credit. This event will take place on Sept. 17 in the CFPB’s Washington, DC, headquarters, and will be streamed live. The CFPB said the symposium “will convene a diverse set of stakeholders to explore challenges in overcoming barriers to expand fair, equitable, and non-discriminatory access to credit [Includes three briefs] ...

For many depositories, there’s a significant mismatch between their reported mortgage banking income and what’s on their call reports…

Mortgage lenders selling loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had to repurchase fewer defective loans in the second quarter of 2018, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis. GSE sellers repurchased $226.84 million of home loans during the second quarter or provided some other form of indemnification. That was down 5.8 percent from the first three months of the year and represented the lowest quarterly buyback total since the fourth quarter of 2016. Freddie repurchases were up 5.3 percent from the first quarter, while Fannie’s fell 17.6 percent. On a year-to-date basis, combined GSE buybacks were down 7.2 percent from the first half of 2017. Again, Fannie volume was down, Freddie’s was up.

A dozen or so mortgage, housing and consumer groups are putting the final touches on a new letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, asking that the department not make any radical administrative changes to the operations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to industry stakeholders familiar with the matter. The immediate and chief concern is that Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt could depart prematurely, throwing the balance of power over to the White House, which would then move to pick a new FHFA director. The industry fears the administration’s pick, working in tandem with Treasury, would then move to cut GSE loan limits as a test to see if the private...

New housing finance structures created to increase private capital would leave borrowers with slightly higher interest rates but greatly reduce federal costs, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office. The report examined several structures, ranging from a fully federal guarantee on mortgage-backed securities to a largely private market. On a “fair value” basis, it will cost the federal government $19 billion over the next 10 years to backstop an estimated $12 trillion in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities. The CBO notes the cost “represents the estimated amount that the government would have to pay private guarantors to bear the credit risk of the new guarantees.”

After exploring and dipping their toes in the single-family rental market since 2016, the GSEs have ended their somewhat controversial pilot programs that provided financing to corporate landlords. The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced last week it was pulling the plug on the programs because SFR operators don’t need the “liquidity provided by the enterprises.” This was welcome news to some who believed that institutional investors don’t need a taxpayer guarantee on top of rental revenues.The agency approved several “test and learn” pilot transactions and solicited industry feedback but ultimately concluded that it was premature to allow the GSEs to enter this portion of the single-family rental market.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders faced another hurdle last week when the Eighth Circuit Court ruled that the Treasury sweep of GSE profits was legal. In fact, in the 14-page ruling, filed on Aug. 23, the judge said, “This shareholder lawsuit crashes into a roadblock before it can get started,” and stated that the Federal Housing Finance Agency did not exceed its conservatorship powers, as the plaintiffs argued. “Congress, intentionally or otherwise, may have created a monster by handing an agency breathtakingly broad powers and insulating the exercise of those powers from judicial review. Even so, clear statutory text dictates the outcome,” said Judge David Stras in Saxton vs. the FHFA.