Depending on its buying spree, Freedom could easily leap-frog into the number four originator spot, bypassing PennyMac Financial, Bank of America, and U.S. Bank.
LO automation could be complicated by compliance. What if there’s a RESPA violation and charges are filed? Who goes to prison: the computer or the supervisor of the computer?...
Former CFPB attorney Richard Horn believes the executive order applies to the CFPB because it refers to agencies under the Administrative Procedures Act…
CFPB Poised to Commence Five-Year Review of Its Major Mortgage Rules. The CFPB is getting ready to start, as per the Dodd-Frank Act, its five-year evaluation of some of the significant mortgage rulemakings it has promulgated thus far, according to a recent account by Politico, as cited by Pavitra Bacon, an associate in the Washington, DC, office of the Ballard Spahr law firm, in an online blog posting.... Will We See CHOICE Act 2.0 This Week? With less than a week left before the end of March, one well-placed industry lobbyist is still holding to the prediction that Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, will in fact introduce another incarnation of his Financial CHOICE act by the end of the month....
With the topic of regulatory reform experiencing a resurgence of attention since the Trump administration moved into the White House, the U.S. mortgage insurance industry is calling for greater uniformity when it comes to the nitty gritty details of the ability-to-repay rule and its qualified-mortgage standard. One area of particular concern for mortgage insurers is the differences between the CFPB’s QM rule for conventional mortgages and the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s QM rule for FHA-insured mortgages. These differences include different debt-to-income caps, different formulae to calculate points and fees, and different standards for higher-cost mortgages. According to U.S. Mortgage Insurers, these differences incentivize greater reliance on programs of the U.S. government, increasing risk to taxpayers. “While consistency and ...
In a recent letter to CFPB Director Richard Cordray, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-MO, called upon the bureau to address potential abuses by financial technology companies that may be engaged in predatory small-business lending. In so doing, he asked that the CFPB “investigate whether fintech companies engaged in small business lending are complying with all anti-discrimination laws, including the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.” The congressman’s letter noted that fintech lending companies, also known as alternative small-business lenders, are a fast-growing industry offering a new wave of innovation, but they also pose many risks, he added. “Over the past decade, there’s been a very large increase of Silicon Valley start-ups and technology companies that are functioning like banks,” Cleaver said. “The CFPB ...
The new political landscape in Washington, DC, has intersected with the judicial movement on the PHH Corp. v. CFPB case to give the mortgage industry some hope that the bureau can be scaled back. But the task is complicated by the fact that the new administration is headed by a political novice, and by the fact that the industry itself is not particularly unified about what kind of changes should be made. During a recent webinar sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance, three top industry attorneys discussed some of the prospects for change on three separate fronts of the federal government: the executive branch, the legislative branch and the judicial branch. If there’s a single theme or take-away from the event,...