Accenture is making major inroads in the residential finance space with its purchase of Mortgage Cadence. Meanwhile, Fannie says market could move toward ARMs.

The MBA believes that the Treasury Department – despite being the GSEs’ single biggest shareholder – has been absent on Fannie/Freddie reform since early 2011.

The numbers suggest that after seven quarters of complaints being received by the CFPB, mortgage lenders are getting a better handle on complaint resolution.

Banking Industry Reps Ask CFPB to Delay Implementing Mortgage Rules. The CFPB should delay the January 2014 effective dates of several pending mortgage rules, a number of banking industry representatives said in a letter to CFPB Director Richard Cordray late last week. “These rules will dramatically refocus the entire lending process,” wrote the American Bankers Association and their state association affiliates. “Every participant in that process, from lenders to borrowers, service providers, appraisers, escrow agents, title...

The CFPB has released the first version of the 2013 Dodd-Frank Mortgage Rules Readiness Guide, which provides a set of criteria and preparation procedures for residential mortgage lenders and originators. The guide’s purposes are to help regulated entities comply with the mortgage rules, highlight key issue areas that may be closely examined during a review, and focus the industry and examiners on key elements of a compliance management system that may warrant review, modification, or other enhancement. The guide...

The CFPB’s final rule to integrate the consumer mortgage disclosures under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and the Truth in Lending Act is now projected to be issued sometime in October, a month later than had previously been indicated, according to the bureau’s semi-annual regulatory agenda update. The RESPA/TILA disclosure rule will be the last significant mortgage-related rulemaking as stipulated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act for the foreseeable future. All of the...

The Mortgage Bankers Association and the Housing Policy Council of the Financial Services Roundtable provided the CFPB with a list of priority implementation items on the ability-to-repay/ “qualified mortgage” rule’s Appendix Q, which provides the standards to make the 43 percent debt-to-income determination required by the general QM standard. “We do not believe rigid adherence to deadlines should result in a rule that is unnecessarily difficult to implement or unduly limits credit for consumers,” the trade group reps...

The CFPB and five other federal financial regulatory agencies issued a proposed rule last week that would create exemptions from certain appraisal requirements for a subset of higher-priced mortgage loans.Under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, mortgages are deemed higher-priced if they are secured by a consumer’s home and have interest rates above a certain threshold. The proposed rule would exempt the following three types of HPMLs from Dodd-Frank appraisal requirements: certain loans secured by...

Debt collection practices are now fully and firmly on the CFPB’s radar. Last week, the bureau warned all companies under its jurisdiction that they will be held accountable for unlawful conduct in collecting a consumer’s debts. In the first of two bulletins, the CFPB makes clear that any entity subject to the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010, whether a third-party collector or a creditor collecting its own debts, can be held accountable for any unfair, deceptive or abusive practices in collecting a consumer’s debts...

The CFPB issued a final rule last week that finalizes the April clarifications made to its ability-to-repay and mortgage servicing rules. Among other things, the final rule clarifies and amends how several factors can be used to calculate a consumer’s debt-to-income ratio. Such factors include a consumer’s employment record and income, business credit reports and other documents relating to self-employed consumers, Social Security income, and non-employment related income such as from a trust or rental property. The final...