In a speech at a National Community Reinvestment Coalition conference in Washington, DC, recently, CFPB Director Richard Cordray spelled out the ways the bureau is working to end the practice of redlining, and not just in the provision of mortgage credit. “We are working to end discrimination in mortgage lending, help make sure that safe and reliable financial products are more readily available, and expand access to credit for those who are currently shut out,” Cordray told attendees. He cited two cases in which his agency worked with the U.S. Department of Justice, one involving Bancorp South and another involving Hudson City Savings Bank. In the Bancorp South case, the government asserted the lender denied some mortgage loans to African-Americans ...
In remarks recently at an event of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, CFPB Director Richard Cordray spelled out how the bureau is trying to aid the mortgage industry’s compliance efforts by promoting greater understanding of its rules, as well as regulatory review, streamlining and modernization. “Our efforts with the mortgage rules went much further than simply reacting passively to industry inquiries (though we have fielded thousands of them),” the director said. “We also took affirmative steps to help the industry understand our rules through publications, videos, webinars, and phone calls with individual institutions.” The bureau adopted a diagnostic and corrective approach to supervision in the early months to ease anxieties about the difficulties of complying with certain components of the ...
Thanks in part to the recent consent order Wells Fargo reached with the CFPB, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency recently gave the top mortgage lender in the U.S. a rare “needs to improve” rating under the Community Reinvestment Act – this despite citing Wells’ overall “outstanding” performance on the lender’s performance examination components, the lender noted. The rating is based on the most recent CRA performance evaluation, which covers the years 2009-2012. The agency referenced the lender’s recent $100 million consent order with the CFPB, and a related action brought by the city and county of Los Angeles that resulted in a $50 million fine, and numerous other enforcement actions. The OCC said the bank’s overall CRA performance ...
New York State Aligns State Law With TRID. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D, recently signed into law Senate Bill S982, legislation that tweaks the existing state legal definition of the “consummation” of a mortgage loan to synchronize with the Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure Rule promulgated by the CFPB.... Industry Need to Get TRID-Compliant Boosts DocMagic’s Bottom Line. Industry vendor DocMagic, based in Torrance, CA, late last week reported a 42 percent increase in revenue for 2016, due in large part to industry demand for products that enable compliance with the CFPB’s Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure Rule, otherwise known as TRID....
There are multiple sides to the Treasury sweep debate but despite rumors to the contrary, the GSEs sent the bulk of their fourth-quarter earnings to the Treasury at the end of March, as scheduled. While some advocate for suspending the profit sweep, others question whether the timing of future payments could be altered to reduce the likelihood that either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac might need another bailout. In early March, industry officials and lobbyists began voicing their belief that the FHFA, possibly with Treasury’s blessing, might alter or suspend the quarterly dividends. One possibility floated was changing the four quarterly payments to one annual one. Speculation may have been fueled...
While hopes were high for GSE reform with the incoming Trump administration, housing industry experts seem to agree that major changes at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may not happen anytime soon. Panelists at a housing finance conference sponsored by Moody’s agreed with the ratings agency’s sentiment and said that the policy environment is in flux and unpredictable with GSE reform unlikely in the near term. “The election of Donald J. Trump as president amid Republican control of Congress has created a new political landscape with potential implications for the U.S. housing and finance markets,” said Moody’s in a recap of the conference. “However, panelists at our conference saw targeted legislative or regulatory changes as...
The Treasury Department reneged on its support of the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s single- director structure last week. The issue stems from a recent PHH Mortgage-initiated lawsuit challenging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s structure as unconstitutional, which led to questioning the similarly structured FHFA. Although the Treasury previously sided with the FHFA, the Trump administration decided to side with the mortgage lender. The Treasury Department is now making a similar argument that the FHFA’s structure is also unconstitutional. The CFPB and FHFA, the GSEs’ regulator, are independent agencies led by a single director whom the president can only fire for cause.
For years, officials at the Federal Reserve seemed nonchalant about coming up with a final exit strategy for the U.S. central bank’s massive holdings of agency MBS and debt and Treasury Securities, currently valued at approximately $4.5 trillion. But now, in relatively short order, the prospect of the Fed beginning to reduce its holdings has become a “thing” – so much so, in fact, that officials there reportedly are starting to put together just such a plan. The likelihood of such a move suddenly got much stronger when the Commerce Department announced late last week that the personal-consumption expenditures price index rose 2.1 percent from a year ago. The Fed has been striving to achieve 2 percent inflation for at least the last five years, and now appears to have the green light it has been waiting for. According to various press reports, the Fed’s plan would entail...
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