Mortgage originators, securitizers and investors are no closer to getting any additional formal guidance from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau when it comes to industry compliance with the agency’s controversial integrated disclosure rule. The rule, which took effect Oct. 3, 2015, combines the consumer disclosures required under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. During a hearing late last week before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, CFPB Director Richard Cordray and Sen. Bob Corker, R-TN, briefly referenced...

The mortgage industry found some justification to hope for a return to a more traditional interpretation of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau took some judicial fire during oral arguments early this week in its dispute with PHH Corp. over the company’s captive mortgage reinsurance activity. The crux of the dispute is the bureau’s assertion that PHH violated RESPA and harmed consumers through a mortgage insurance kickback scheme tied to a captive MI company. Virtually all the major mortgage lenders used similar captive reinsurance entities prior to the financial collapse. In the run-up to this week’s oral arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the justices seemed...

Although there hasn’t been a lot of good news on PHH of late, one analyst we spoke with noted a positive: “They still have plenty of cash on their books…”

The flow of home loans covered by private mortgage insurance into new Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities fell by 11.5 percent during the first quarter of 2016, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis and ranking. That decline mirrored the 11.6 percent drop in purchase-mortgage securitization from the fourth quarter by the two government-sponsored enterprises. A slight uptick in refinance activity partly offset the slide in purchase-mortgage business. Private MIs do...[Includes two data tables]

Wells reported mortgage banking non-interest income of $1.6 billion for the first quarter, a $62 million decline from the prior period.

Private mortgage insurance firms adjusted their pricing in early 2016…

Meanwhile, BofA’s “legacy assets and servicing” unit lost $40 million in the first quarter of 2016.

Trouble ahead for CFPB chief Richard Cordray? The judges asked: “What independent agencies now or historically have been headed by a single person…”

If Jamie Dimon really cares about the pain suffered by his customers, he may want to keep his default management servicing inhouse…

Because of continuing problems in implementing the TRID integrated disclosure rule, lenders have not been able to focus on the new HMDA requirements...