The ruling handed down this week that concluded the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is unconstitutional has led to industry chatter that the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which is similarly structured, could be more closely examined. In PHH Corp. v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a DC Circuit Court judge found that the bureau’s single-director structure was unconstitutional and dismissed a $109 million penalty against PHH for violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. Robert Maddox, financial services litigation attorney with Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, told Inside The GSEs, “While the court did not address the constitutionality of FHFA, the framework of FHFA may possibly lend itself to the same constitutional scrutiny as the CFPB.”

Reversing at least temporarily a long-running trend in the mortgage market, the four biggest banks in the U.S. expanded their presence in the GSE single-family market in the third quarter of 2016. Together, Wells Fargo, Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup delivered $61.88 billion of single-family loans into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities during the third quarter, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis and ranking. That was up a hefty 45.0 percent from the second quarter, well above the 29.7 percent increase in overall MBS issuance by the two GSEs. The four megabanks, all with over $1 trillion in assets, expanded their combined GSE footprint by 2.2 percent from the second quarter.

Private mortgage insurers are quietly gaining ground on their government-insured rivals in the critical home-purchase market, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of agency mortgage-backed securities data. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securitized $61.47 billion of purchase mortgages with private MI coverage during the third quarter, a gain of 33.4 percent from the previous period. At the same time, Ginnie Mae securitized $79.91 billion of FHA and VA purchase mortgages, up 19.3 percent from the second quarter. The private MI share of agency purchase loans rose...[Includes two data tables]

Bank pricing strategies are more about responding to new product regulations, fee income and capital and liquidity standards rather than to their consumers’ view of value, according to a new Deloitte report on retail-bank pricing. The report, which attempts to make the case for value-based pricing, contends that bank pricing tactics focus primarily on costs and risks rather than on how consumers perceive and receive value. It’s...

PHH Corp. this week scored a key legal victory in its battle with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over captive reinsurance and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. But despite this good news, there are still clouds over the nonbank. The “worst” of the recent spate of bad news for the company surrounds the early October disclosure that Merrill Lynch is breaking all ties to PHH when it comes to private-label originations and servicing. The effective date for the end of the contract is...

Given that the mortgage servicing industry seems far removed from where it was when the housing crisis peaked, what will become of default servicing in the years to come? For one thing, a certain amount of delinquency will always exist in the housing market, according to a new white paper from the Five Star Institute, which drew together research, insight and commentary from a host of industry resources and experts. “For all the loans that are out there, there will always be...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw a robust 29.7 percent jump in single-family mortgage business during the third quarter, with most of the gain coming from the purchase-mortgage side of the business. And more purchase-mortgage business usually means a bigger share for correspondent lenders. Correspondent originations accounted...[Includes two data tables]

RBS Securities has agreed to pay $120 million to the state of Connecticut to resolve an investigation into its underwriting of residential MBS shortly before the 2008 collapse of the financial markets. CT Attorney General George Jepsen and Department of Banking Commissioner Jorge Perez announced the agreement, which, they said, is the largest single settlement in Connecticut’s history. It also ends a four-year state investigation into RBS’s securities underwriting and due diligence practices. At issue were...

Executive departures continue to plague due diligence provider Clayton Holdings and now there’s talk that its parent company, Radian Group, is contemplating taking a goodwill charge on a subsidiary it paid $305 million for two years ago. The latest top-level officials to leave the unit include Capital Markets Senior Managing Director Brian Wornow and Mark Hughes, executive vice president in charge of sales and marketing. Sources close to Wornow contend...

Since the repurchase and indemnification phenomenon is unlikely to disappear anytime soon, many correspondent lenders, credit unions and other recipients of a repurchase/indemnification demand want to know how best to respond in order to mitigate potential damages. During a recent webinar sponsored by American Mortgage Law Group, AMLG Senior Managing Member James Brody said there are many different factors to consider. “One of the things that really helps in getting any resolution is...