The CHLA suggests, among other things, that the U.S. Treasury stop sweeping all GSE profits and instead put that money in a capitalization reserve account...
One industry observer saw the development as indicative of growing nervousness that the CFPB may be putting its Democrat allies on Capitol Hill in an awkward position...
The Securities and Exchange Commission dropped its civil fraud case against Thomas Lund, former executive vice president of Fannie Mae’s single-family business in the years leading up to conservatorship. The discontinuance of the case was announced this week by Lund’s attorney Michael Levy of Paul Hastings. “Thomas Lund has been vindicated,” he said. “After investigating for three years, litigating for another three years, deposing 50 witnesses and hiring four experts, the SEC concedes that it has not prevailed,” he said, adding that Lund will refrain, for 12 months, from signing things that he never signed in the past and has no intention of signing in the future. Lund will pay the agency $10,000. However, the SEC is classifying the payment as a “gift” to the...
Officials in the mortgage industry continue to obsess about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s pending integrated disclosure rule, but perhaps they should be paying closer attention to complying with the CFPB’s existing mortgage origination and servicing rules, a top bureau official suggested this week. Speaking at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s 2015 regulatory compliance conference in Washington, DC, Peggy Twohig, assistant director for supervision policy ...
Marketplace lending – otherwise known as peer-to-peer lending – is becoming more of a “thing” for institutional investors, hedge funds, venture capital firms, and even banks these days, but there are plenty of risks lurking in the bushes as well as other operational challenges, according to ratings service analysts. “While marketplace lending has enjoyed increasing growth and acceptance, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services believes a measured and cautious approach is warranted to properly evaluate this segment, which exhibits unique and heightened risks,” S&P credit analysts Ildiko Szilank and Timothy Bartl wrote in a new report. Among the risks they identified is...
The average daily trading volume for agency MBS fell slightly to $187.6 billion in August from the prior month, the second lowest reading of the year, according to figures compiled by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. Lower trading volume indicates that liquidity has been reduced somewhat, but there could be brighter days ahead: the eight-month daily trading average is a bit higher at $200.9 billion and if that figure holds for the rest of the year, it will surpass last’s year’s daily average of $177.9 billion. Then again, $200.9 billion wouldn’t be...
The pricing disclosures mandated by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority for ABS have had a mixed impact on the market, according to industry participants, with many claiming that the transparency has reduced liquidity. In June, FINRA started reporting post-trade price information for ABS via the Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine, better known as TRACE. The disclosures include the CUSIP, price and volume, all disclosed within 45 minutes after a trade is made. Actual volume is disclosed for trades below $10 million while trades above that amount are noted as “$10+ million.” The disclosures apply to publically-registered ABS along with deals in the private-placement 144A market. At the ABS East conference held by Information Management Network last week in Miami, Rishi Kapur, a managing director at Babson Capital, said...