The GSEs purchased close to 100,000 low-downpayment loans from 2013 to 2016, but not all borrowers participated in a homeownership counseling course when required, according to a recent audit.In a new report, the Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of Inspector General concluded that both Fannie and Freddie had high rates of compliance in their 97 percent loan-to-value programs.During the three-year period, the GSEs purchased 94,328 loans that fit into the 97 percent mortgage product. Fannie was responsible for 74,700 of those loans with about one-fourth of the borrowers requiring homeownership education. This is where the GSE fell short.

The House of Representatives this week approved bills extending regulatory relief pertaining to the integrated disclosure rule under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, or TRID.

The Department of Veterans Affairs will require lenders to provide early disclosures to veterans seeking to refinance into a VA Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan. The new policy aims to ensure that the VA streamline refi loan they sought would actually lower their monthly mortgage payments and is not just a scam for lenders to charge higher fees. Loan churning, or serial refinancing, is at the root of the VA policy change. Churning refers to multiple refinancing of an unseasoned mortgage loan within a very short time, often within six months of origination. Serial refinancing may add more payments and interest to the new loan, prolonging debt repayment, and can strip equity. It also potentially raises the risk of default by the borrower. In addition, the risk of prepayment could affect pricing of Ginnie Mae securities, which could cause lenders to charge higher rates on VA loans to make up for the ...

President Trump still needs a permanent director for the CFPB, and rumor has it that the White House is contemplating appointing someone more moderate than Acting Director Mick Mulvaney or House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX. One newcomer to the supposed short list under consideration is Jonathan Dever, a Republican state representative in the Ohio legislature and chairman of its Financial Institutions Housing and Urban Development Committee. In this capacity, he is charged with overseeing the reform of all the state’s financial institution laws, laying out an aggressive agenda of reorganizing and rewriting its foreclosure, lending, real estate, and banking statutes. Another new name being floated is that of Dan Iannicola, president and CEO of the Financial Literacy ...

CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney recently brought Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, up to speed on data security at the bureau, in response to her recent inquiry that challenged his imposition of a freeze in industry data collection efforts. “I do not expect you, as an outside observer of the bureau’s activities, to be aware of the bureau’s other data security risks,” he said in reply to her earlier correspondence. “You may not know that prior to my appointment as acting director, there were 233 confirmed breaches of consumer personally identifiable information (PII) within the bureau’s consumer response system by the bureau or its contractor, and at least another 840 suspected PII breaches by financial institutions using the company portal were ...

House Rules Committee Expected to Clear Legislation to Tweak Points and Fees Definition under the ATR Rule. The House Rules Committee is expected to clear sometime this week H.R. 1153, “The Mortgage Choice Act,” legislation that would make two adjustments to the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) definition of points and fees to ensure greater consumer choice in mortgage and settlement services under the ability-to-repay/qualified mortgage rule.... OIG Has Mixed News for CFPB on Mobile Device Data Security. The CFPB got a dinged report card from the Office of Inspector General in terms of the security of mobile technology that bureau staff use. “Mobile devices help CFPB staff carry out their duties, but the portability of these devices heightens the risk of loss or theft of IT equipment and data,” said the OIG in explaining its motivation for evaluating the CFPB’s mobile encryption practices....

President Trump this week signed a short-term spending bill that would keep the government operating until Feb. 8, 2018. The bill ended a three-day shutdown after the previous spending authority for most of the government expired at midnight on Jan. 19. However, the threat of another shutdown looms. FHA and Ginnie Mae both had contingency plans in place in case the short-lived shutdown dragged on, as it had in 2013. That event lasted for 16 days, at a loss of $1.6 billion a day to the federal government. Under FHA’s emergency plan, the agency would continue to endorse new single-family forward mortgages, but not Home Equity Conversion Mortgages and Title I loans. Ginnie would reduce staffing to essential personnel but continue its secondary market operations. It would continue to remit timely payment of principal and interest to investors, grant commitment authority and support issuance of ...

There could be substantial revisions to some major mortgage-related rulemakings from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the direction of Acting Director Mick Mulvaney, such as the ability-to-repay rule and the mortgage servicing rules.

In recent days, Judge Timothy Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia circuit ruled, as expected, to deny CFPB Deputy Director Leandra English’s personal legal bid soliciting a preliminary injunction to unseat Acting Director Mick Mulvaney and install her in the job. For multiple reasons, “including that English has not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits [of her case] or shown that she will suffer irreparable injury absent injunctive relief, her request for a preliminary injunction is denied,” the judge wrote. Further, “The president has designated Mulvaney the CFPB’s acting director, the CFPB has recognized him as the acting director, and it is operating with him as the acting director,” he continued. “Granting English ...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, recently questioned whether CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney is intentionally trying to undermine the bureau, utilizing some Inspector General concerns about the agency’s data security as a pretext. In a letter to Mulvaney and Leandra English, the deputy director of the federal regulator, Warren said the CFPB cannot fulfill its core functions without collecting personally identifiable information. “When a consumer submits a complaint, the CFPB asks for information such as their name and account number to enable the agency to help resolve the dispute,” Warren said. “CFPB bank examiners and enforcement lawyers regularly use account-level data provided by regulated institutions to detect improper and unlawful activity.” Similarly, the bureau’s Office of Fair Lending collects and analyzes ...