CFPB Deputy Director Steve Antonakes isn’t toning down his antagonistic stance towards mortgage servicers. Speaking at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition Annual Conference in Washington, DC, last week, Antonakes rattled the bureau’s sabre at the market sector again, saying, “We expect servicers to pay exceptionally close attention to servicing transfers and they should understand that we will as well. “Servicing transfers where the new servicers are not honoring existing permanent or trial loan modifications will not be tolerated,” he added. “Struggling borrowers being told to pay incorrect higher amounts because of the failure to honor an in-process loan modification – and then being punished with foreclosure for their inability to pay the incorrect amounts – will not be tolerated.”

World Acceptance Corp., one of the largest small-loan lenders in the U.S., received a civil investigative demand from the CFPB last week, the company disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The CID states, in part, that “[t]he purpose of this investigation is to determine whether finance companies or other unnamed persons have been or are engaging in unlawful acts or practices in connection with the marketing, offering or extension of credit ….” The probe is also being undertaken “to determine whether bureau action to obtain legal or equitable relief would be in the public interest,” the filing said.

Fitch Ratings just released its finalized criteria for analyzing loans securing non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities under the qualified mortgage standard and ability-to-repay rule. Fitch said it will require more credit enhancement to loans that do not benefit from the QM safe harbor protection. Second, credit enhancement will be based on pool probability of default, which projects the maximum number of borrower challenges, as Fitch expects borrowers will only make a claim that the lender violated the rule as a defense to foreclosure.

Coping with the potential for fair lending violations in the new qualified-mortgage world is a source of high anxiety for many compliance professionals in mortgage finance. But Gregory Imm, chief compliance officer and director of community affairs and fair lending and responsible banking at Fifth Third Bank, recently shared some lesser-known considerations that should increase industry representatives’ confidence in their compliance and readiness. Speaking to participants in a recent webinar sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance, an affiliated publication, Imm said the first area is measurement. “Institutions need to establish key performance risk indicators of what should be measured, and not what is convenient to measure,” he said. “I say ‘convenient’ because those are the activities that are easy to measure because you have the data at your fingertips.”

Regulators have been paying closer attention to the mortgage servicing practices of the large nonbank servicers, but they’re not the bad actors their critics make them out to be, analysts at Compass Point Research & Trading concluded recently. “Overall, we believe there is some merit to the operational concerns about portfolio growth for the special servicers, but the longer-term track record of the special servicers is strong and the near-term operational issues likely will be temporary,” the Compass Point team said.The analysts compared the servicing practices between the largest bank and nonbank mortgage servicers.

Three lender-related trade groups told the CFPB they are opposed to the wholesale extension of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act to first-party creditors using the bureau’s rulemaking authority to prohibit unfair, deceptive or abusive acts and practices. Commenting on the bureau’s advance notice of proposed rulemaking on debt collection practices, the American Bankers Association, the Consumer Bankers Association, and the Financial Services Roundtable said they support the CFPB’s decision to initiate a rulemaking in the space, given the massive consumer debt market now stands at $11.8 trillion and the importance debt collection has for credit availability.

The latest budget issued by the CFPB projects an 8.3 percent increase from $538.7 million in fiscal year 2013 to $583.4 million in fiscal year 2015. The programs with the most significant increases in funding are consumer response operations, up 84.8 percent over that time, and supervision, enforcement and fair lending, which will rise 65.6 percent. The emphasis on consumer response and enforcement is also reflected in the number of full-time employees (FTE) by program.

Assessments levied on the Federal Reserve Banks for the CFPB came to $563.2 million for calendar-year 2013, up from $385.2 million for 2012, an increase of 46.2 percent, according to a new report from the Fed Office of Inspector General. The assessments are based on each Reserve Bank’s capital and surplus balances. Also, the bureau transferred to the Fed funding for the operations of the OIG in the amounts of $10 million and $3 million in 2013 and 2012, respectively. “Beginning in 2014, the bureau’s funding share of OIG operations will be adjusted based on actual OIG expenses and work allocation from the previous year,” the report said.

Movers & Shakers: Assistant Director Carroll to Depart CFPB for Wells Fargo. It looks like the name of Pete Carroll can be crossed off the list of candidates to head the common securitization platform joint venture of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Carroll, who currently serves as assistant director for mortgage markets at the CFPB, has accepted a job offer from Wells Fargo, the nation’s largest residential lender and servicer, sources told IMFnews, an affiliated publication. At Wells, Carroll is expected to become a senior vice president within the capital markets group, coordinating strategy with industry trade groups and consulting with policy makers on housing finance issues. That post at Wells was recently held by Bob Ryan, who left the megabank to take a senior advisor position at the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Two months after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability-to-repay requirements took effect, non-agency lenders seem to have adjusted to the rule. The debt-to-income ratio requirements for qualified mortgages do not appear to have prevented many borrowers from obtaining a mortgage and lenders have adjusted their documentation requirements. “To my knowledge we haven’t lost any sales because people didn’t qualify under the QM banner,” said ...