Participants in the commercial MBS market appear to have some certainty regarding the use of third-party purchasers to meet risk-retention requirements. The Securities and Exchange Commission seems to have helped resolve concerns about the accounting treatment for such deals, though a formal statement hasn’t been issued.
The Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle lost an appeal in an MBS case against Barclays Capital this week in which it claimed the investment banker made false statements or left out certain facts about the securities it sold in 2008. But the Court of Appeals of Washington State ruled that theFHLBank was fully aware of what it was buying at the time.
Mortgages with high home price-to-income ratios tend to perform worse than mortgages with lower PTI ratios, according to economists at the Federal Reserve. The analysts suggest that PTI ratios are a helpful tool for gauging mortgage risk by tracking housing affordability. “Banks that have greater exposure of mortgages to high PTI regions have higher mortgage delinquency and charge-off rates and significantly higher probabilities of failure, even after controlling for ...
There was plenty of activity at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over the last week, from continuing legal drama over the leadership of the agency to changes in enforcement activity and a possible regulatory roll-back.
The Supreme Court of the United States recently refused to take up a case that would have ad-dressed a split in the lower courts regarding mortgage underwriters and overtime. With conflicting cir-cuit court opinions on the matter, lenders face regulatory uncertainty about whether underwriters are entitled to overtime.