During a conference call last week with members of the news media, Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, the one-time chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, defended the CFPB and criticized congressional Republicans for their attack on the agency, accusing them of hypocrisy on multiple fronts. “I thought Republicans were concerned about excessive power in the executive branch, that they want to defend their congressional prerogative,” said Frank. But during the debate on the Dodd-Frank Act, Congress decided quite consciously that we would have an independent, single director, independent in the sense that the president could not fire that person at will,” he noted. “That was a congressional restriction on presidential appointment power, no question about it.” But now, apparently their ...
More changes, or at least additional guidance, may be in the offing for the pending Home Mortgage Disclosure Act rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that is scheduled to take effect next year, agency Director Richard Cordray said last week during an appearance on Capitol Hill. During a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-CA, pointed out, “Studies have shown that in some geographic areas, it is possible to determine the identity of nearly 100 percent of the borrowers using the data that lenders are required to collect and report by the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. This is despite the fact that that act supposedly provides for anonymous data in its final form.” Sherman also ...
Community lending representatives met with Trump administration officials last week to push a package of pro-growth, regulatory relief proposals, including a number of changes to the mortgage rules promulgated by the CFPB. The meeting was held with Treasury Department officials under President Donald Trump’s executive order directing the Treasury to review existing laws, treaties, regulations, guidance, reporting and recordkeeping to determine if they promote or inhibit federal regulation of the U.S. financial system as per Trump’s core principles outlined in Executive Order 13772. Meeting with the Trump administration officials were a handful of CEOs of bank that are members of the Independent Community Bankers of America.Among the proposed changes the trade group advocated was a more expansive qualified mortgage ...
Consumer complaints to the CFPB about mortgages are down in every single category tracked by this publication, and in fact show double-digit declines in all but one grouping, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside the CFPB. Total mortgage-related criticisms to the bureau came to a relatively scant 8,334 for the period ending March 31, 2017, the second lowest first quarter total in the five-plus years since the agency began collecting such data in the fourth quarter of 2011. That number represents a decline of 14.8 percent from the fourth quarter and an even larger drop of 23.0 percent from the same period one year ago.On the loan modification front, borrower gripes fell to 2,987 during 1Q17, ...
In a speech at a National Community Reinvestment Coalition conference in Washington, DC, recently, CFPB Director Richard Cordray spelled out the ways the bureau is working to end the practice of redlining, and not just in the provision of mortgage credit. “We are working to end discrimination in mortgage lending, help make sure that safe and reliable financial products are more readily available, and expand access to credit for those who are currently shut out,” Cordray told attendees. He cited two cases in which his agency worked with the U.S. Department of Justice, one involving Bancorp South and another involving Hudson City Savings Bank. In the Bancorp South case, the government asserted the lender denied some mortgage loans to African-Americans ...
Thanks in part to the recent consent order Wells Fargo reached with the CFPB, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency recently gave the top mortgage lender in the U.S. a rare “needs to improve” rating under the Community Reinvestment Act – this despite citing Wells’ overall “outstanding” performance on the lender’s performance examination components, the lender noted. The rating is based on the most recent CRA performance evaluation, which covers the years 2009-2012. The agency referenced the lender’s recent $100 million consent order with the CFPB, and a related action brought by the city and county of Los Angeles that resulted in a $50 million fine, and numerous other enforcement actions. The OCC said the bank’s overall CRA performance ...
New York State Aligns State Law With TRID. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D, recently signed into law Senate Bill S982, legislation that tweaks the existing state legal definition of the “consummation” of a mortgage loan to synchronize with the Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure Rule promulgated by the CFPB.... Industry Need to Get TRID-Compliant Boosts DocMagic’s Bottom Line. Industry vendor DocMagic, based in Torrance, CA, late last week reported a 42 percent increase in revenue for 2016, due in large part to industry demand for products that enable compliance with the CFPB’s Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure Rule, otherwise known as TRID....
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