Firms that specialize in subservicing home mortgages for others continued to post steady gains in the first quarter, according to a new tally from Inside Mortgage Finance. The nation’s 20 largest subservicers held $1.689 trillion of contracts at March 31, a 5.1 percent sequential gain and a hefty 24.1 percent improvement from the same period a year earlier. Also, roughly $1.877 trillion of the nation’s mortgages are...[Includes one data table]
The Department of the Treasury this week issued a report calling for stripping the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of its supervisory powers over federally insured banks and state-supervised nonbanks, clarifying and modifying the TILA-RESPA integrated disclosure rule, and freezing additional rulemaking in mortgage servicing. The report recommends actions and changes that can be immediately undertaken to reduce regulatory overlap, fragmentation and duplication. While some of the changes could be implemented administratively, many would require congressional action. Treasury called...
The Treasury Department this week proposed eliminating the special qualified-mortgage provision that allows Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to acquire loans with debt-to-income ratios that exceed the normal 43 percent limit for QM loans. The special treatment for the government-sponsored enterprises, known as the GSE patch, “creates an unfair advantage for government-supported mortgages without providing additional consumer protection … and inhibits consumer choices by restricting private sector flexibility and participation,” the agency said in a report on financial service regulatory reform. The report urged...
The market for mortgage mergers and acquisitions is beginning to heat up with talk about who’s in – and who might be out. According to investment banking officials speaking under the condition they not be identified, Caliber Home Loans and Flagstar Bancorp continue to make their intentions known as buyers. “Caliber is looking to make a big splash,” noted one advisor who said he’s been contacted by the privately held lender. “And they have money behind them too.” That “money” would be...
The most challenging aspect of complying with the pending amendments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s mortgage servicing rule will be implementing the successors-in-interest provisions, according to industry experts. Most of the revisions to the rule, issued last year by the CFPB, take effect Oct. 19, 2017. But the successor-in-interest requirements kick in April 19, 2018. Addressing an audience at the 2017 American Bankers Association regulatory compliance conference in Orlando this week, compliance professionals broke...
Mortgage lenders that expect to close on a pending home-equity line-of-credit near the end of this year may run afoul of the new Home Mortgage Disclosure Act rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau if the HELOC doesn’t close on time, compliance experts cautioned this week. That’s because the CFPB created a compliance gap by failing to establish a rule to guide industry conduct during the transition from the current reporting regime to the new one. At least that’s the assessment of some top HMDA professionals during a break-out session at the 2017 American Bankers Association regulatory compliance conference in Orlando this week. The crux of the problem is...
The Trump administration plans to issue a request for information (RFI) regarding a Department of Labor final rule currently on hold that would raise the annual salary threshold for employee exemption from overtime pay. Testifying before the House Committee on Appropriations last week, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta said the proposed RFI would seek public comment regarding the economic or anticipated impact of raising the annual salary requirement for overtime exemption from the current $23,660 to $47,476, as the previous administration had proposed. The Obama administration issued...
The House of Representatives last week passed sweeping legislation that would repeal or modify consumer protection provisions of the Obama-era Dodd-Frank Act, including an overhaul of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s structure and authority as well as changes to the rulemaking process followed by the CFPB and federal banking agencies. The House approved H.R. 10, the Financial Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs (CHOICE) Act, on June 8 by a vote of 233-186, along party lines. The bill was sent to the Senate, where Republicans enjoy a narrow majority and would have to win over some Democrats to get the bill through. Under the Republican bill, the CFPB would be renamed...
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