At the same time, there has been an increase in the share of loans with downpayment assistance…

The CFPB is expected to move more quickly to reconsider its payday-lending rule after a federal court denied the delay of the rule’s compliance date that had been requested in a joint motion filed by the CFPB and two trade groups. Two payday-lending trade groups – the Community Financial Services Association of America and the Consumer Services Alliance of Texas – in April filed a lawsuit in Texas federal district court, alleging the agency’s payday-lending rule is unlawful ...

The Treasury Department wants to reduce the GSEs’ footprint in the mortgage market, according to Treasury Counselor Craig Phillips. He also reiterated, about a week before the administration formally published its thoughts on reform (see story page 3), that ultimately the goal is to take Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of conservatorship. He said that at 70 percent the federal share of housing is clearly far too high. The Treasury official spoke at a Bank of America Merrill Lynch mortgage and housing finance conference in New York last week that was closed to the press. BAML provided a report on his remarks.

As the Federal Reserve slowly unwinds its agency MBS holdings, economists forecast there are more disposals to come and without much market disruption.

Defaults remain low on student loan refinancing originated by online lenders due to the overall high quality of their borrowers, and some new repayment assistance programs will help the strong performance, said Moody’s Investors Service.

Merrill Lynch has agreed to pay more than $15 million to resolve allegations that its traders misled investors into overpaying for residential MBS. In other legal stories, a monoline insurer sued a trustee over the settlement amount in an RMBS repurchase case while another group of MBS trustees defeated a class-certification motion in California state court.

The possibility of issuer failure is a continuing concern at Ginnie Mae…

The new ruling raises the likelihood that the Supreme Court might take up the issue in the future.

“We didn’t observe any meaningful change in purchase loan application trends compared to earlier years,” said Archana Pradhan of CoreLogic.

One former loanDepot official had this to say about the rumor: “It makes sense. loanDepot has plenty of loan officers handling inbound leads. Amazon could create a ton more and compete with Quicken….”