"Contrary to the fable told by the left, the root cause of the financial crisis was not deregulation but dumb regulation," said House Financial Services Committee chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX.

“Sub debt is a good way to grow your business without it being dilutive to your company,” said Bill Dallas, CEO and founder of Skyline Lending.

Declining interest rates don't appear to have affected the servicing auction market much.

Ocwen denied that there is any basis for a default under the trust agreements...

Thanks to its settlement with California regulators, Ocwen's share price is on the rise. But for how long?

Even though mortgage-related complaints to the CFPB fell 14.5 percent year over year and 16.1 percent percent quarter to quarter, gripes about the mortgage loan application and origination process dropped even further, a new analysis by Inside the CFPB shows. Consumer criticisms about their loan apps and the overall origination process fell 22.8 percent from 2013 to 2014. The fourth quarter drop-off was even better, down 28.0 percent from the third quarter. While those performances are positive on the surface, they may be indicative of larger trouble elsewhere: in the case of the U.S. mortgage market, the fall in complaints about loan apps and originations is most likely largely due to the continued slow-down ... [with exclusive chart]...

The reconstituted House Financial Services Committee recently adopted an oversight plan for the 114th Congress – and scrutiny of the CFPB remains part of the agenda of the Republican-controlled committee. “The committee will oversee the regulatory, supervisory, enforcement, and other activities of the CFPB, the effect of those activities on regulated entities and consumers, and the CFPB’s collaboration with other financial regulators,” said the plan document. “The committee will also examine the governance structure and funding mechanism of the CFPB.” When it comes to specific sectors of the financial services industry, the committee said it plans to closely review recent rulemakings by the CFPB and other agencies on a variety of mortgage-related issues. “The committee will monitor the coordination and implementation ...

Elsewhere, the latest figures from the CFPB show a big reduction in consumer belly-aching about loan modifications...

FirstKey Mortgage, which has big plans in the non-agency space that include lending outside the qualified mortgage box and securitization, late this week saw the departure of three of its top executives, including CEO Bruce Witherell. According to industry officials familiar with the situation, FirstKey’s parent company, Cerberus, was beginning to take more of an active role in how the lender/issuer was being operated, a situation that didn’t sit well with some senior executives at the nonbank, including Witherell. Witherell and FirstKey executives Randy Sidhu and David Essex have accepted...

Issuers of auto ABS are loosening underwriting standards and delinquencies on subprime auto loans are increasing, but industry analysts suggest that there is little cause for concern. Performance remains much stronger than the delinquencies seen during the financial crisis and issuers are unlikely to loosen underwriting to the extent seen in the run-up to 2008. For independent finance companies, 60+ delinquencies increased by 13.7 percent in the past year, from 1.82 percent in the third quarter of 2013 to 2.07 percent in the third quarter of 2014, according to the latest data from Experian Automotive. Independent finance companies focus primarily on lending to subprime borrowers, and their delinquency trends outpaced any increase in delinquencies for other types of lenders that lend primarily to prime borrowers. Peter McNally, a vice president and senior analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, said...