Credit history and debt-to-income outpaced collateral as the primary contributors to mortgage application denials in the purchase-loan segment in 2013, according to an analysis by Inside the CFPB of the latest Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data released last week by the CFPB and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council. It was a much closer horse race in the refinance space, but then again, collateral is always more of an issue for refis. Credit history was identified as the cause of denial for 26.3 percent of applications last year in FHA/VA purchase mortgages, followed by DTI at 23.3 percent, with collateral registering only at 12.4 percent. Things were a little more competitive in the conventional home purchase loan space. There, credit ...

Did Apple Place Itself Within CFPB’s Purview? Some legal experts think the recent rollout of mobile payment technology by Apple Inc. might have put the consumer technology heavyweight in the CFPB’s regulatory crosshairs. Georgetown Law Professor Adam Levitin said in a recent blog that Apple may have unwittingly become a regulated financial institution through the release of its Apple Pay service. “Basically, I think Apple is now a ‘service provider’ for purposes of the Consumer Financial Protection Act, which means Apple is subject to CFPB examination and UDAAP [unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices],” he said. Levitin then proceeded to walk readers through a number of legal definitions to bolster his argument. Vivian Kim, an associate at the Dykema ...

At least a dozen or so national lenders – almost all of them nonbanks – have rolled out lending programs for loans that don’t meet the qualified mortgage standard, and none of them expect to issue a mortgage-backed security this year. Moreover, most aren’t so certain they will be able to issue a security next year either, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t thinking about it. New Penn Financial has created...

The Treasury Department will have a key role in developing a $1 billion "test" non-agency security.

Demand in the fixed-income markets for Ginnie Mae securities continues to increase at home and abroad as the program’s deep liquidity and explicit government guaranty draw more investors, according to agency officials and MBS issuers. The relatively high proportion of purchase-money loans and first-time buyers helped Ginnie edge past Freddie Mac in recent months in terms of new issuance, noted John Getchis, head of Ginnie’s Office of Capital Markets, during the Ginnie Mae Summit held in Washington, DC, this week. “We saw...

At the top of the heap was the Federal Reserve, which boosted its agency MBS portfolio by 3.8 percent during the second quarter.

The megabanks also decreased their use of interest rate reductions on loan modifications...

The government-sponsored enterprises plan to expand their risk-sharing activities in a number of ways in 2015, according to officials at the GSEs and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Kevin Palmer, a vice president of strategic credit costing and structuring at Freddie Mac, said Freddie is set to include a broader group of mortgages in its risk-sharing transactions in an effort to increase the investor base. Fannie has similar plans. The GSEs have issued...

With new issuance faltering in 2014, the net supply of residential MBS in the market declined by 0.3 percent during the second quarter of 2014, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. MBS outstanding totaled $6.348 trillion at the end of June, wiping out gains made in the second half of last year. It was the lowest MBS outstanding number since 2006. The agency MBS market grew...[Includes three data charts]

In its rebuttal, FHA argues that if the delinquent loans had not been worked out, lenders would have been entitled to $5.2 billion of insurance claims – money the MMIF could ill afford.