Mortgage lending industry representatives called on the CFPB to establish a range of data safeguards if the agency intends to proceed with its expressed interest in “normalizing” its consumer complaint data.For the bureau’s purposes, “normalizing” the data refers to ways in which the agency could take the raw data it receives from its consumer complaint online portal and transform it to make it meaningful and useful to the general public.In commenting on the bureau’s recently released request for information on the subject, the American Bankers Association said it generally supports the concept and objective of providing context for the data. However, it “does not believe that any normalization strategy should proceed unless and until the bureau adopts measures ...
Consumer complaints to the CFPB about credit reporting were down slightly from the first quarter and up modestly at the mid-year mark versus a year ago, according to an analysis by Inside the CFPB. However, some dramatic differences were in play among the top 10 subjects of complaints. The most notable exception to the overall moderate trend line was sixth-ranked CoreLogic, which saw consumer gripes skyrocket an eye-popping 900.0 percent at the six-month mark compared to 2014. LexisNexis was also bad, with a 241.7 percent leap during the same time period. And Early Warning Services turned in the third-worst performance among the top 10, demonstrating a 100.0 percent increase in consumer criticisms. Overall, however, the results were far tamer. First ...
The CFPB and the Federal Housing Finance Agency jointly released two technical reports recently about the development of the National Mortgage Database (NMDB) and the quarterly National Survey of Mortgage Borrowers (NSMB). The NMDB project is a multi-year project being jointly undertaken by the two agencies. “The project is designed to provide a rich source of information about the U.S. mortgage market based on a five percent sample of residential mortgages,” the first technical report stated. The NMDB will enable the FHFA to meet current statutory requirements to conduct a national mortgage market survey, collect data on the characteristics of individual mortgages, including those eligible for purchase by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and those that are not, and including ...
New issuance of single-family agency MBS dropped sharply in August as production slowed across the board at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae. A new Inside MBS & ABS analysis reveals that the three agencies produced $109.34 billion of single-family MBS during August, a 15.1 percent decline from July’s level. August 2015 was the slowest month since March, though it was 20.2 percent higher than a year ago. Freddie posted...[Includes three data tables]
Activity in the Home Affordable Refinance Program in the second quarter of 2015 was down 0.3 percent from the first three months of the year, according to new loan-count figures released by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Fannie Mae had a slight increase in HARP activity and accounted for 59.3 percent of the total for the two government-sponsored enterprises. Freddie Mac volume was down 1.5 percent from the first quarter. HARP volume represented...[Includes one data table]
Legacy-era non-agency MBS litigation continues to be a ripe field of opportunity for U.S. regulators and industry attorneys alike, years after the financial crisis and Great Recession ended, thanks to some key recent judicial rulings. Late last month, Judge Alvin Thompson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut gave the green light to the Federal Housing Finance Agency to continue to pursue its claims against the Royal Bank of Scotland. The regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac alleged that RBS provided misleading statements related to $32.1 billion in RMBS the bank sold to the two government-sponsored enterprises between 2005 and 2008. The thrust of the FHFA’s complaint is...
Of course, there is a way to avoid the zero capital cushion dilemma. Congress can pass legislation to allow the GSEs to build capital or FHFA can act...
Meanwhile, refinance lending rose just 0.9 percent from the first to the second quarter, but still accounted for just over half of new originations during the period.