A ban on captive insurers joining the FHLB system appears to be over.

The captive insurer is owned by a REIT, a spokeswoman for the district bank said, but declined to name either.

Over the past few years, 482 of Ocwen’s deals have experienced breaches, but the trustee generally did not seek termination of the servicing contract.

Commercial banks and thrifts reported another decline in their ABS holdings during the fourth quarter of 2014, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis of call-report data. In aggregate, banks and thrifts held $159.22 billion of ABS in their held-to-maturity and available-for-sale retained portfolios as of the end of last year. That was the industry’s lowest level of ABS investment since the middle of 2012, and it represented a 3.1 percent drop from a revised third-quarter total of $164.35 billion. The biggest component in the aggregate portfolio was...[Includes two data charts]

The dispute around an $8.5 billion settlement between Bank of America and non-agency MBS investors may be at an end after a New York state appeals court signed off on the deal. The agreement would mean a quick end to a lengthy legal battle over a settlement that was first announced on June 28, 2011. It also means the agreement could become the template for all representations-and-warranties settlements with large institutional investors, analysts said. BofA agreed...

Over a fifth of the loans securitized last year by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae do not meet one of the key criteria of the qualified-mortgage standard that came into effect in January 2014, and instead rely on an exemption for agency loans. During 2014, the three agencies securitized $198.3 billion of home loans with debt-to-income ratios exceeding 43.0 percent, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis of loan-level disclosure data. That represented 21.5 percent of total MBS issuance by Ginnie and the two government-sponsored enterprises. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau requires...

This mortgage manager estimates a “good” LO works 50 to 70 hours a week…

While most of the 18 financial institutions sued by the Federal Housing Finance Agency in 2011 have settled allegations of securities law violations, underwriting flaws and fraud related to non-agency mortgage-based securities, one bank, Nomura Holding America Inc., plans to take the case all the way to trial.

Despite the potential seriousness of the allegations, the CFPB did not identify any lenders by name.

Subservicing vendors increased their contracts by 23.1 percent in terms of dollar volume over the past year and now process an estimated $1.12 trillion of home mortgages, according to exclusive survey figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance. When it comes to market share, subservicers control 12.3 percent of all U.S. housing receivables. According to interviews with industry executives, compliance costs are...[Includes one data chart]