A final rule issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau regarding loss mitigation and other servicing practices will be positive for the servicing of non-agency mortgages, according to Moody’s Investors Service. The rating service said the rule will help standardize and improve servicing practices by increasing automation and clarifying ambiguities in the interpretation of regulatory requirements. Most of the provisions in the new rule will take effect in a year ...

Ocwen Financial agreed to a consent order with the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions this week, which included a $900,000 fine. The consent order related to Ocwen’s use of offshore unlicensed affiliate companies to service mortgages on properties in Washington state. Going forward, Ocwen agreed to service Washington-based mortgages only through licensed entities and the state will not license foreign entities ... [Includes three briefs]

Among the top 15 subprime servicers, only Caliber Home Loans increased its portfolio during the second quarter of 2016, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Caliber handled $18.62 billion in subprime mortgages as of the end of June, up 4.4 percent from March. During that span, the total amount of subprime mortgage outstanding fell by 4.2 percent to an estimated $275.00 billion. Caliber has been originating ... [Includes one data chart]

S&P Global Ratings upgraded servicer ratings for Ocwen Loan Servicing to average from below average this week. Ocwen’s stock price increased significantly after the upgrade because of ratings clauses in Ocwen’s subservicing agreements with New Residential Investment. S&P downgraded Ocwen’s servicer ratings in June 2015 and if the ratings weren’t raised by April 2017, New Residential could transfer the subservicing to a different company. As of the end of ...

Ocwen Financial reported a net loss of $87.20 million for the second quarter of 2016, with most of the loss related to so-called legacy issues. A planned settlement with the Department of Justice of two lawsuits involving the Home Affordable Modification Program and FHA mortgages caused $40.10 million in pre-tax losses for the nonbank lender-servicer. The company also paid $28.10 million during the quarter to cover the cost of monitoring settlements involving federal regulators ...

Investors in non-agency mortgage-backed securities serviced by Ocwen Financial released a report this week calling for Standard & Poor’s to upgrade Ocwen’s servicer ratings. In June 2015, S&P downgraded Ocwen Loan Servicing’s servicer ratings to “below average,” citing regulatory issues and investor scrutiny along with concerns about internal audits at Ocwen. The downgrade is a focus for some investors because some of the non-agency MBS serviced by Ocwen have ...

Verizon Wireless is preparing to package the payment plans on more than 3.09 million cell phones into an ABS, marking the first time an ABS in the U.S. will be backed by such collateral. The planned $1.17 billion Verizon Owner Trust 2016-1 received preliminary AAA ratings from Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s. “It’s the most interesting type of consumer ABS product we’ve seen in a long time,” said Darrell Wheeler, head of research for global structured finance at S&P. “And obviously, with the amount of phones in the market today, it has a lot of potential.” Analysts at Moody’s Investors Service noted...

Ocwen Financial faced mixed results in servicing litigation recently while avoiding further downgrades of its corporate issuer default rating. Last week, Ocwen announced that it had agreed to settle two lawsuits brought by the Department of Justice involving the Home Affordable Modification Program and FHA mortgages. The pending $30 million settlement involves alleged violations of the False Claims Act, among other issues. The lawsuits were brought in 2012 by ...

After declining for 10 consecutive quarters, the serious delinquency rate on subprime mortgages increased in the first quarter of 2016, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The non-seasonally-adjusted serious delinquency rate on subprime mortgages was 12.41 percent at the end of the first quarter of 2016, up from 12.39 percent the previous quarter and down from 15.17 percent in the first quarter of 2015. The serious delinquency rate ... [Includes six briefs]

Falling delinquency and foreclosure rates over the last few years have continued to break recent records, according to industry sources, thanks to several factors including an improved housing market and price appreciation. As of the end of March, only 4.95 percent of the $5.08 trillion of home mortgages covered by the Inside Mortgage Finance Large Servicer Delinquency Index were in default or foreclosure status. That was down from 5.54 percent at the end of the fourth quarter. The figures are not seasonally adjusted. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported...[Includes one data table]