Certain online payday lenders and other businesses deemed to present risks to consumers could find themselves banned from the Automatic Clearing House network, thanks to increased scrutiny from the CFPB and other authorities. Speaking before the Clearing House Annual Conference late last month, CFPB Director Richard Cordray invoked the bureau’s mandate to subject nonbank entities to the same level of regulatory scrutiny as banking institutions. “We now have the ability to examine participants in both the bank and nonbank segments of...

Members of the House Financial Service Committee are continuing to give the CFPB a hard time over its recent auto fair-lending guidance, which quickly got the industry up in arms. Most recently, in a Nov. 15 letter to CFPB Director Richard Cordray, Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-MO, challenged the CFPB for failing to study how a shift to flat-fee compensation for dealers could influence the cost of credit to borrowers, especially low‐ and moderate‐income borrowers. “It is imperative that the bureau take the opportunity to conduct an...

Rohit Chopra, CFPB assistant director and student-loan ombudsman, hinted recently that borrower enrollment in repayment programs by servicers might be a likely focus of bureau examinations and investigations once the agency’s student-loan servicer “larger participant” rule is finalized. In comments before the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Chopra noted some similarities between problems in the mortgage market and the student-loan market – including breakdowns in the servicing sector. “The CFPB has...

Bureau Faults Financial Services Providers Over Educational Expenditures. A new study from the CFPB claims that the financial services industry spends 25 times as much money annually on marketing financial products and services to consumers each year than on financial education – $17 billion versus $670 million, respectively. According to the bureau’s modeling methodology, that shakes out to about $54 on marketing versus $2 on financial education per person per year. Richard Hunt, president and CEO of the Consumer Bankers...

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae still provide most of the funding for home loans originated in 2013, but the non-agency sector has been making a stealthy comeback, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. Conventional-conforming loan production declined by 24.5 percent from the second quarter of 2013 to the third quarter, dropping to an estimated $275.0 billion. Although that still accounted for 59.8 percent of total production for the period, it was the lowest quarterly volume in conventional-conforming lending since the third quarter of 2011. Government-insured lending continued...[Includes two data charts]

The Department of Housing and Urban Development expects to issue the long-anticipated FHA FY 2013 independent review of the state of the FHA’s Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund on or before the middle of December. The report’s release was delayed due to the three-week government shutdown in October.

The once deadlocked, but now all-but-certain, confirmation of Rep. Mel Watt, D-NC, to be the new director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency has left industry observers uncertain as to the continued policy direction of the FHFA.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency this week announced 2014 conforming loan limits for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that are unchanged from those currently in place, but it’s unclear whether the agency still intends to direct the government-sponsored enterprises to set lower limits. The agency cited statutory requirements of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 that require changes in the baseline loan limit, $417,000, based on the movement of house prices. Al-though house prices have risen over the past year, the FHFA said, they still haven’t made up all the decline since the housing market tanked in 2007. In the third quarter of 2013, the FHFA house price index was...

After a few weeks of drought in the servicing auction market, a handful of new portfolios are hitting the circuit as sellers try to bolster earnings before year-end. “Buyers haven’t had much new to look at lately, but that’s changing,” said Tom Piercy, managing member of Interactive Mortgage Advisors, Denver. “I think sellers are a little concerned about the new origination forecast for next year from the [Mortgage Bankers Association] and they are thinking they should convert some of their assets to cash.” The MBA last month projected...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency needs to be more hands-on and engaged with additional resources to best oversee Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks, according to the agency’s inspector general. In its semi-annual report to Congress, the FHFA IG noted “recurring oversight issues that policymakers may want to consider as part of reforming the secondary mortgage market.” “The recent housing crisis has shown...