The CFPB recently issued a request for information into ways to expand access to credit for consumers who are “credit invisible,” that is, those who don’t have enough credit history to generate a credit score. The bureau issued the RFI to drum up public feedback on “the benefits and risks of tapping alternative data sources such as bills for mobile phones and rent payments to make lending decisions about consumers whose lack of credit history might otherwise block opportunities.” According to the CFPB, there are 26 million Americans who are credit invisibles. “Another 19 million consumers have a credit history that has gone stale, or is insufficient to produce a credit score under most scoring models,” said the agency. The ...
Another Trump Executive Order Targets Regulatory Red Tape. Late last week, President Trump signed another executive order focused on government regulations – this one requiring every agency to establish a regulatory reform task force to eliminate red tape. ... ABA Offers CFPB Some Suggestions to Protect Shared Consumer Data. The American Bankers Association recently had some advice for the CFPB for protecting consumers’ financial information that is being voluntarily shared with third-party data aggregators....
The Federal Home Loan Bank System increased its earnings by 6 percent in the fourth quarter and saw an 18.7 percent increase for all of 2016. Earnings rose in the last three months of the year to $913 million, from $861 million in the third quarter, rounding out the year with a net income total of $3.408 billion. The FHLBank Office of Finance noted that the quarterly net income increase was primarily due to higher gains on derivatives and hedging activities. Moreover, higher gains on litigation settlements helped grow both the quarterly and yearly increase. Additionally, the yearly earnings growth was due to gains on trading securities, partially offset by lower gains on derivatives and hedging activities, said the OF.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ended 2016 with a bang when fourth quarter combined earnings totaled stellar results, nearly $9.9 billion, representing the best quarter of the year. Fourth-quarter earnings were largely driven by high gains in the fair market value of the GSEs’ hedges, which gained $10.2 billion on a combined basis. “Interest rates went up in the fourth quarter, therefore you saw an unusually large gain in the accounting,” Freddie CEO Donald Layton told Inside The GSEs. Both GSEs had quarterly earnings increases throughout the year. Fannie reported $5.0 billion in the fourth quarter, up from the $3.2 billion in the third quarter, and Freddie more than...
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