Meanwhile, stock analysts who were once bullish on Ocwen are now taking out their knives, downgrading or slamming the once high-flying company.

Ocwen officials said the sale of agency receivables has the potential to free-up more than $1.7 billion of capital for the company.

Republicans also will try to subject the CFPB’s budget to the congressional appropriations process.

Supervision & Enforcement to Exceed Half of CFPB Staff. The staffing level in the supervision, enforcement and fair lending division of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is projected to rise to just over half – 51.4 percent – of bureau personnel for fiscal year 2015, which began Oct. 1, 2014, and ends Sept. 30, 2015. SEFL staff made up 45.7 percent of the CFPB’s workforce in FY 2014. The other division of a significant size that is projected to grow in FY 2015 is the consumer response unit, which is slated to expand from 11.8 percent of the staff to 12.4 percent. There are two other large divisions – the operations unit and the research, markets and regulations unit – and both are projected ...

Many mortgage lenders are going to feel they are “damned if they do, damned if they don’t,” when they learn about the fair lending pitfalls inadvertently lurking in the weeds of compliance with the CFPB’s Truth in Lending Act and Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act integrated disclosure rule and the forthcoming Home Mortgage Disclosure Act rule. “Looking ahead to next year and beyond, the TILA-RESPA integrated disclosure rule could bring additional new risk,” said Colgate Selden, counsel with the Alston & Bird law firm, during a recent webinar on fair lending risk sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance, an affiliated newsletter. “Some of these are old risks that may have gone away, but are back in some ways,” Selden told attendees. ...

Different segments of the financial services industry are split on the CFPB’s proposal to implement a limited “no-action letter” policy to reduce the regulatory uncertainty that may exist for certain emerging products or services which stand to benefit consumers. The proposed policy would allow bureau staff to send a no-action letter to a company informing it that the CFPB isn’t planning to recommend initiation of supervisory or enforcement action in connection with a firm’s offering or provision of a new product. As innocuous as that sounds, at least one firm, International Bancshares Corp. of Laredo, TX, said it had serious concerns with the bureau’s proposal, which the company characterized as very narrow.Among the company’s complaints is that the bureau’s ...

The CFPB’s proposed rule, “Defining Larger Participants in the Automobile Financing Market,” didn’t win many friends in the auto finance sector during the public comment period which closed earlier this month. The proposed rule would generally allow the bureau to supervise larger nonbank auto finance companies – those that make, acquire or refinance 10,000 or more loans or leases in a year – for the first time at the federal level. The bureau also indicated that it considered, and is continuing to consider, the establishment of a higher threshold – 50,000 annual originations, and one that is lower – 5,000 annual originations.The National Independent Automobile Dealers Association told the CFPB it should decline to establish any threshold that is lower than the 10,000 ...

Consumer complaints to the CFPB about credit reporting-related issues fell 10 percent industrywide during the third quarter of the year, but leapt more than 100 percent on a year-over-year basis, according to an analysis of the bureau’s complaint database by Inside the CFPB. Drawing definitive conclusions on the data may be premature, given that the bureau has only been collecting complaints about credit reporting since the fourth quarter of 2012. However, a close look at the available data suggests a seasonal jump in consumer grievances takes place in the first quarter of the year. For example, in the first quarter of 2013, gripes jumped 63.7 percent. Similarly, in the first quarter of 2014, complaints leaped 101.5 percent [with exclusive chart] ...

In response to growing concern over medical debt collection and reporting, the CFPB announced at a recent public field hearing that it will require major credit reporting companies to provide regular accuracy reports as part of ongoing examinations. The reports are to highlight key risk areas for consumers, such as disputes filed with the credit reporting agencies. Some of the metrics in the accuracy report are to include: Furnishers with the most overall disputes: If a credit reporting company continuously experiences a disproportionately large number of consumer disputes about information from a particular furnisher, the CFPB said it expects the credit reporting agency to investigate, identify if there is a problem, and take appropriate action. Industries with the most disputes: ...