The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is considering expanding the size and scope of the exemption on its pending final rule regarding servicing practices, according to agency officials. The CFPB also downplayed concerns that the servicing rule will expand loss-mitigation options beyond those approved by mortgage investors. During a webinar this week hosted by Inside Mortgage Finance, Mitchell Hochberg, regulatory counsel at the CFPB, said the agency is very heavily thinking about ...
At least two nonprime industry veterans are out in the market actively trying to raise funds to start lending operations, according to interviews conducted by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Whether they will be successful is another matter. Jon Daurio, a founder and former top executive at the now defunct Encore Capital, is trying to raise $250 million and hopes to have much of the work tied to his capital raise completed by the end of the first quarter of 2013. Daurio has been working on raising money ...
Damage from Hurricane Sandy will have a negligible impact on mortgages in outstanding non-agency mortgage-backed securities, according to a new analysis by Opera Solutions. The servicing analytics provider said 45 non-agency MBS deals with $19.6 billion in outstanding balance have mortgages with exposure to significant damage from the storm and the likely affected balance is $6.0 billion. Based on a detailed analysis of each portion of affected ZIP codes, the ultimate exposure is much lower ... [Includes four briefs]
The CFPB has proposed allowing banks, credit unions and other financial services companies to test new consumer disclosures on a case-by-case basis. The bureau would have to approve of the disclosure programs ahead of time. Under the proposal, the CFPB would exempt certain qualifying individual companies for a limited time from existing federal disclosure laws so they can research and test informative, cost-effective disclosures. The participating companies would then share their results with the agency so it...
The CFPB has released a report on consumer experience with the three largest nationwide credit reporting companies Equifax, Experian and TransUnion finding, among other things, that credit card history dominates the information in consumer reports and that debt collection items generate the highest rate of disputes. Each of these firms have in excess of 200 million files on consumers. In a typical month, they receive updates from approximately 10,000 information furnishers. The furnishers do this on more than...
The CFPB has a pretty full plate digesting hundreds of comments related to its mortgage servicing proposed rule, making it difficult to predict how the final product might end up as it presses to balance the industrys legitimate concerns with the regulatory mandates of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. During a recent webinar sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance, an affiliated publication, Mitchell Hochberg, counsel in the division of research, markets and regulations at the CFPB...
There was a pronounced difference of opinion between a leading industry attorney and a top official from the CFPB at a recent event over whether the bureaus proposed mortgage servicing standards create a private right of action that could bring any foreclosure proceeding to a grinding halt. During a webinar sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance, Larry Platt, financial services practice area leader with the law firm of K&L Gates, said, The consequence of these regulations is to create a federal cause of action that...
The FHA this week announced additional measures to restore the financial health of its insurance fund and better protect consumers, including tighter underwriting on new FHA loans and elimination of a widely used standard fixed-rate reverse mortgage product. Acting FHA Commissioner Carol Galante unveiled the latest structural reforms in a Dec. 18 letter to Sen. Bob Corker, R-TN, who has repeatedly expressed concerns over the slow pace of reforms at FHA. The reforms address issues the senator raised with Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan at a Dec. 6 Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on ...
The U.S. Senate has unanimously passed legislation guaranteeing that privileged information provided to the CFPB will remain confidential, ending months of lender uncertainty about the disclosure of privileged and confidential information to the powerful new bureau. H.R. 4014, introduced in March by Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-MI, adds the CFPB to the list of federal agencies that are permitted to share the privileged information of a regulated entity with other federal agencies without waiving any state...
The CFPB announced it will provide state banking and financial services regulators with real-time access to the database it uses to collect complaints consumers have with credit cards, mortgages, student loans, checking and savings accounts, credit reporting, bank services and other consumer loans. gThis way, multiple government agencies can work on the consumerfs behalf without them having to file complaints with multiple agencies at different levels of government,h said Scott Pluta, assistant director for the...