As Democrats in Congress worked on reforms after the financial crisis, issuers of MBS and ABS repeatedly warned that regulatory uncertainty would hurt the market. With Republicans now looking to roll back parts of the Dodd-Frank Act, industry participants are pushing for risk-retention requirements to remain in place, again citing the potential impact of regulatory uncertainty. “It’s foolish to think that we would try to tear it all down,” said Howard Kaplan, a partner at the law firm of Deloitte & Touche, during this week’s SFIG Vegas conference. Among many other changes, the CHOICE Act from Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, would repeal...
CFPB analyst Megan Thibos reminds consumers that, “During the foreclosure crisis, many borrowers with subprime mortgages faced sharply increased mortgage payments and were unable to make those payments.”
Late last month, Fairholme Capital chief Bruce Berkowitz sent out a press release reassuring his shareholders that the hedge fund’s bet on owning the junior preferred stock of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will prevail, eventually. Among other things, the veteran equity-fund manager extolled the government-sponsored enterprises’ massive fourth quarter profits of almost $10 billion, called them “indispensable” to the mortgage insurance industry and reminded readers they continue to fulfill “their historic role of insuring adequate levels of liquidity to lenders of all sizes.” He also mentioned...
Can a technology that helped bring the cryptocurrency Bitcoin into being enhance the securitization markets? The Structured Finance Industry Group and the Chamber of Digital Commerce think so and have partnered to help make it happen. According to Perianne Boring, founder and president of the CDC, which bills itself as the world’s largest trade association representing the blockchain industry, “The securitization process is an ideal candidate for the efficiencies of distributed ledger technology. “Blockchain platforms create...
The threat of large, unpredictable settlements are looming over several European banks that have not yet resolved their remaining MBS lawsuits, putting pressure on their earnings and capital, according to a new Fitch Ratings report. Uncertainty about the scale of penalties from legacy MBS lawsuits will compel the affected banks to continue being cautious about managing and retaining capital, and distributing dividends. Though most of the banks have strengthened their capital positions considerably since the financial crisis, there would be no rest for them until the last settlement dime has been paid, the report indicated. Bank settlements with U.S. agencies relating to fraud investigations of their roles in the financial crisis, specifically their legacy MBS business, have...
Limitations spanning more than three years on Ocwen Financial’s ability to acquire servicing could be ending soon. Company officials stress that a resumption of servicing acquisitions will help Ocwen see some benefits from economies of scale. In the three years since the New York Department of Financial Services started preventing Ocwen from acquiring servicing, Ocwen’s portfolio has declined by more than 50.0 percent, hitting an unpaid principal balance of $209.09 billion ...
Potential mortgage borrowers with bad credit or no credit should proceed with caution if they have been offered a subprime mortgage, according to advice from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB published a blog post this week focusing on the homebuying process for people with “poor” credit scores. The post, part of a series on home purchase advice, was authored by Megan Thibos, a policy analyst with the CFPB’s mortgage markets team. The post suggested that ...
The FHA is nearing full implementation of a new loan review system (LRS) for managing FHA’s Title II single-family quality-control processes. No specific implementation date has been set but it could be sometime in the second quarter, the agency said. The LRS builds on FHA’s efforts to align the documentation of loan-review results. In addition, it incorporates the Single-Family Housing Loan Quality Assessment Methodology or defect taxonomy.The FHA said the new system would not be used to manage any aspect of the agency’s standard loan origination or endorsement processes. Rather, it would be used to review of test cases submitted by lenders seeking unconditional direct-endorsement authority. It would be used as well for various post-endorsement reviews of forward single-family loans. After the ...
Relators in a False Claims Act lawsuit must allege misconduct that has not already been publicly disclosed or risk dismissal of their qui tam claims, according to the U.S. Appeals Court for the Sixth Circuit. In U.S. ex rel. Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc. v. U.S. Bank, the court ruled that whistleblowers cannot raise “substantially the same allegations or transactions” that have been previously alleged in an action or claim and publicly disclosed. The qui tam plaintiff must be the original source of the allegations, the court said. Only certain disclosures trigger the prohibition, the court noted. They include disclosures “in a federal criminal, civil or administrative hearing in which the government or its agent is a party,” or in a Government Accountability Office or other federal report, hearing, audit or investigation, or from the news media. n this case, the relator/plaintiff alleged that U.S. Bank initiated foreclosure proceedings ...
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