The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.GSE anti-money laundering, SARs reporting proposed. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network proposed regulations that would require Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks to develop anti-money laundering programs and file suspicious activity reports with FinCEN. The government-sponsored enterprises currently file fraud reports with their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which then files SARs with FinCEN when the facts in a particular fraud report warrant a SAR under FinCEN’s reporting standards.

A white paper put together by a researcher at the Federal Reserve looks into what determines whether federal and state supervisors examine state banks independently or together. The results suggest that supervisors coordinate examinations in order to support states with lower budgets and capabilities and more banks to supervise. “I find that states with larger budgets examine more banks independently, that they accommodate changes in the number of banks mostly through the number of examinations with a federal supervisor and that, when examining banks together, state banking departments that have earned quality accreditation are more likely to write conclusion reports separately from federal supervisors,” researcher Marcelo Rezende said. The results also indicate that regulation affects supervision by changing the characteristics of banks. “Independent examinations decrease with branch deregulation, which is consistent with the facts that this reform consolidated banks within fewer independent firms and that state and federal supervisors are more likely to examine large and complex institutions together,” said Rezende.

The servicing settlement being negotiated between state attorneys general and major banks will likely require principal reduction via loan modifications and possibly refinances. Principal reduction, however, will likely only be required for certain mortgages held in bank portfolios. The Federal Housing Finance Agency has refused to allow principal reduction on mortgages serviced for the government-sponsored enterprises. Non-agency mortgage-backed security investors, meanwhile, have been more accepting of principal reduction of late but the vast majority of such mod activity is already concentrated on portfolio loans. ...

Ratings by DBRS of new non-agency mortgage-backed securities will include analysis of several factors at the metropolitan statistical area level. The new rating methodology and loss model were released last week without substantive changes from the proposal the rating service issued in October. “The experience of the last decade has made it apparent that it is not credible to consider loan performance without factoring in house prices and unemployment rates,” DBRS said. ...

Non-agency investors will not support new mortgage-backed securities until lenders and issuers establish stringent standards for originations and securitization, according to industry participants. “You’re going to need something to convince people – at least in the top tier – that their credit risk is pretty low,” David Lukach, a partner and head of the U.S. structured finance group at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said at a discussion hosted by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association last week. ...

A subprime-related fair lending lawsuit was allowed to proceed to discovery last week in Illinois. In 2009, Lisa Madigan, the state’s attorney general, filed a lawsuit against Wells Fargo alleging that the lender steered minorities into high-cost subprime mortgages. ... [Includes three briefs]

Wells Fargo was the top jumbo lender in 2010, according to a ranking by Inside Nonconforming Markets based on Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data compiled by ComplianceTech/Lending Patterns. Wells had $40.87 billion in originations greater than the $417,000 standard conforming loan limit in 2010. ... [Includes one data chart]

Finding itself in one of the largest mortgage fraud cases ever prosecuted by the federal government, the Department of Housing and Urban Development may have a hard time explaining why it failed to act earlier against a lender that scammed the FHA for nearly a decade. It appears HUD, notwithstanding its assertions of increased vigilance and aggressive enforcement against violators of department regulations, dropped the ball on Allied Home Mortgage Corp. According to a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan district court this week, Allied, an FHA loan correspondent, and its two top executives engaged in ...

FHA originations dropped while the rest of the mortgage market, powered by a new wave of refinancing, posted gains during the third quarter, according to an Inside FHA Lending analysis of agency originations data. FHA lenders reported an estimated $145.7 billion in direct endorsements in the third quarter, down 3.7 percent from the previous quarter. This was in stark contrast to VA loan production, which was up an impressive 31.0 percent to $20.7 billion, and new single-family securitization by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which rose 14.4 percent to $177.2 billion over the same period. Even the private mortgage insurance sector, FHA’s direct competitor, outdid ... [Includes one data chart]

FHA claims rose in 2011 from last year with loss mitigation and property conveyances accounting for the bulk of paid claims, according to Inside FHA Lending’s analysis of FHA fiscal year data. Though increasing by 7.7 percent, claims are still far below the 15.0 percent average for FHA loans, said an agency spokesperson. On Sept. 30, servicers reported 635,096 mortgages in serious default, yielding a default rate of 8.7 percent. This fiscal year, FHA reported 326,892 claims, of which 200,808 were loss mitigation-related and 91,448 were property conveyance actions. Claims related to pre-foreclosure sales and Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loans showed the most ...