Consumer complaints about their student loan debt obligations rose slightly at the six-month mark, up 4.8 percent versus the previous year, according to a new analysis by Inside the CFPB. Month over month, gripes were down 4.0 percent. There was a good bit of variation in the numbers, company to company, during both time periods. But there was also a good bit of consistency within individual companies, with six of the top 10 rising or falling according to both metrics. For instance, top-ranked Navient saw consumer criticisms fall 6.8 percent quarter over quarter and 14.8 percent at the mid-year point compared with last year. Meanwhile, at second-ranked Genesis Lending, consumer complaints spiked 29.9 percent QOQ and skyrocketed more than 1,000 ...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District Columbia recently issued a stay against a $109.2 million fine levied by the bureau against PHH Corp. related to the lender’s captive mortgage insurance activities. The bureau had initiated an administrative proceeding against the nonbank lender, accusing it of harming consumers through a mortgage insurance kickback scheme tied to a captive MI. A judge agreed and recommended a penalty of just $6.4 million, which the CFPB ignored and jacked up to $109.2 million, a figure the regulator argued represented all the MI premiums received after July 2008. What startled the industry was the CFPB’s decision to throw out previous guidance from the Department of Housing and Urban Development under which PHH and ...
Subsequent to the publication deadline for the previous issue of Inside the CFPB, American Honda Finance Corp. submitted a statement in response to the enforcement action brought against it late last month by the CFPB and the Department of Justice.“AHFC strongly opposes any form of discrimination, and we expect our dealers to uphold this principle as well,” said the lender. “We firmly believe that our lending practices have been fair and transparent. “AHFC has a difference of opinion with the CFPB and the DOJ regarding the methodology used to make determinations about lending practices, but we nonetheless share a fundamental agreement in the importance of fair lending,” the company added.In cooperation with the CFPB and the DOJ, AHFC...
CFPB Sends Questionnaire to Debt Collection Entities. The CFPB recently sent a questionnaire to a variety of debt collection firms, creditors and service providers in an effort to help the bureau “better understand operational costs and other factors associated with debt collection.” Noting that participation is voluntary, the consumer regulator said industry responses “will inform the bureau’s analysis of the costs and benefits of potential new rules related to debt collection.” The questionnaire asks about basic activities and operational costs of collecting debt, including, for example, questions about vendors used for activities such as dialers or print mailings, maintaining data about consumer accounts, and furnishing information to credit bureaus. “After we have received the questionnaire responses, we plan to reach ...
More issuers are stepping up to the plate by creating securities collateralized by nonperforming residential loans, but so far the action has mostly taken place in the private-placement market. “There have been a bunch of securitizations of NPLs lately,” one trader told Inside MBS & ABS, “but it’s all been Reg. 144 filings,” a reference to the Securities and Exchange Commission rule that allows for the public resale of restricted collateral if a number of conditions are met ...
It doesn’t happen often in the agency MBS market, but Ginnie Mae last month took the yellow jersey away from Fannie Mae. Ginnie issued a record $45.54 billion of single-family MBS in July, the agency’s biggest monthly output ever. That was a 12.6 percent increase from June, and nudged past Ginnie’s previous biggest month, July 2009, when its issuers pumped out $44.84 billion of single-family MBS. And it beat Fannie’s $44.14 billion of ... [Includes two data charts]
Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs this week announced it has set aside $1.45 billion for legal expenses for the second quarter of 2015, bringing its total anticipated legal costs so far to $5.9 billion to settle Department of Justice claims stemming from the sale of vintage non-agency MBS. A good chunk of that figure – $270 million – is expected to be tapped to resolve residential MBS litigation brought by pension funds led by NECA-IBEW Health & Welfare Fund of Illinois ...
Freddie Mac’s first Whole Loan Securities deal was met with strong demand from investors, according to industry analysts. The transaction differed in a number of ways from the risk-sharing deals the government-sponsored enterprises have issued, as its structure was more like a non-agency MBS. The $300.27 million WLS 2015-SC01 included senior tranches with a total balance of $278 million and credit enhancement of 7.50 percent. Investors could purchase the senior ...
Close to one-third of the $154.79 billion in non-agency MBS serviced by Ocwen Financial is subject to potential servicing transfers due to downgrades to the firm’s servicer ratings and actions by investors. However, Ocwen has managed to retain servicing on a vast majority of the 119 deals thus far, helped by the proceeds the company delivers to non-agency MBS investors. Ocwen faces the potential loss of non-agency MBS servicing on two fronts. Some $43.1 billion ...