As previously reported by Inside Mortgage Trends, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau did in fact announce plans last week to roll out a voluntary eClosing pilot project later this year – along with guidelines that lay out the minimum functions required of participants as well as the features the CFPB wants to test in the pilot. To join the bureau’s pilot on electronic closings, each participant must have a system that meets minimal technical capabilities and requirements ...

Mortgage industry participants should expect the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to cast both a wider and deeper dragnet of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data compared to the Federal Reserve’s oversight of the nearly 40-year-old law, according to CoreLogic. A new CoreLogic report forecasts a more muscular collection of industry information following the Dodd-Frank Act’s transfer of HMDA supervision and enforcement from the Fed to the bureau, including a significant shift in ...

Agency securitization of loans originated by correspondents and mortgage brokers fell 27.9 percent during the first quarter, but there are a number of companies moving in to take up the slack as big-name banks trim down their third-party originator programs. Wells Fargo and Chase remained the biggest sellers of TPO loans to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, but their volume was down 41 percent from the fourth quarter ... [Includes one data chart]

During the first quarter of 2014, nonbank lenders accounted for 37.7 percent of originations, based on a market sample covering over three quarters of fundings during the period.

Although Garrett declined to comment further on the matter, attorneys that represent lenders before the CFPB were happy to share their opinions on the "under oath" issue.

Ocwen's share price fell 7 percent on the day, moving closer to its 52-week low of $33.54. Its high is a mouth-watering $60.18. In other words, its market cap has been almost halved.

According to figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance, in the fourth quarter brokers facilitated roughly 9.8 percent of all originations, one of the lowest readings ever.

Mortgage lenders scored a victory this week when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced it will grant lenders a “right to cure” home loans that inadvertently exceed the 3 percent points-and-fees cap for qualified mortgages. “The bureau is proposing to allow for a post-consummation cure of points-and-fees overages only where the loan was originated in good faith as a qualified mortgage to ensure that the cure provision is available only to creditors who make inadvertent errors in the origination process and to prevent creditors from exploiting the cure provision by intentionally exceeding the points-and-fees limits,” the agency said. Currently, under the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rule, the points and fees charged to a consumer on a QM loan generally cannot exceed...

The mortgage originations market is still, by and large, a banker’s game, but nonbank lenders are continuing to muscle up their share of new production, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis and ranking. During the first quarter of 2014, nonbank lenders accounted for 37.7 percent of originations made by a large sample of lenders that covered more than three quarters of the total production during the period. That was up from a 35.5 percent nonbank share in the fourth quarter of 2013 and a 26.0 percent nonbank share back in the first three months of last year. The nonbank share of originations is...

The New York Department of Financial Services expanded its investigation of nonbank servicers, raising concerns about sales of real estate owned properties for Ocwen Financial by Altisource Portfolio Solutions, an affiliate of the nonbank servicer. Officials at Altisource downplayed the concerns late last week and said the company plans to continue to grow with Ocwen. In February, NYDFS Superintendent Ben Lawsky put on indefinite hold a planned servicing transfer from Wells Fargo to Ocwen on mostly non-agency mortgages with an unpaid principal balance of $39.2 billion. Lawsky has sent a number of questions to Ocwen as well as Nationstar Mortgage based on concerns that the nonbank servicers were growing too quickly. Officials at Ocwen note...