The strong improvement from last year was driven largely by a 46.8 percent plunge in grievances about loan modifications.

However, a new research report from Sterne Agee notes: “We see the DFS as the primary log jam on the servicing transfer front.”

The FHFA shortly will begin to collect additional, more specific and personal information on borrowers and loans as part of the National Mortgage Database project the agency launched with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

ICYMI: Late last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released its guide to completing its integrated disclosure forms under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and the Truth in Lending Act.

The CFPB plans to launch a pilot project as part of its efforts to improve the mortgage closing process.

Ocwen's Bill Erbey sees the positive in recent scrutiny of nonbank servicers.

Standard & Poor’s earned a split decision this week in its counter-offensive against the federal government’s civil fraud lawsuit filed last year, which the rating agency claims is payback for its August 2011 downgrade of the U.S.’ ‘AAA’ credit rating. The Justice Department in February 2013 filed a $5.0 billion lawsuit against S&P accusing it of knowingly inflating its ratings of residential MBS and collateralized debt obligations to boost its revenue and market share in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis. On Tuesday, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, CA, denied...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to announce a voluntary pilot project next week related to its efforts to streamline and improve the mortgage-closing process – an initiative likely to rely heavily on the industry’s latest technological capabilities, and perhaps stimulate some innovation in the process. The pilot will be formally announced on Wednesday during a live online webcast of a public forum the bureau plans to conduct at its headquarters in Washington, DC ...

It’s been a full three months since the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability-to-repay final rule and qualified-mortgage definition have been implemented. So far, there have been no significant changes to origination strategies on the part of lenders, according to a Standard & Poor’s survey of rated mortgage lenders. “In terms of projected regulatory impact on recent lending activity, 84 percent of 2013 mortgage production was QM compliant, with the remaining ...

There are a variety of components for a successful compliance-management program mortgage lenders should implement, but the primary goal needs to be preventing harm to consumers, according to bank examiners with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. “Given the challenges associated with the regulatory environment of today, we’d like to emphasize the importance of looking at bank operations while asking two questions from a consumer compliance perspective,” said ...