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.

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.”

Some stakeholders said they called the firm’s investor relations department about the latest probe and were told the firm would be saying more about the matter when it reports first quarter earnings.

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.

A New York state judge last week dismissed with prejudice a $567 million legal action brought by the Federal Housing Finance Agency against Deutsche Bank in 2012 over the bank’s refusal to repurchase hundreds of millions of residential mortgage-backed securities from Freddie Mac. Judge Eileen Bransten of New York’s State Supreme Court in Manhattan ruled the FHFA’s suit is barred by New York’s six-year statute of limitations.The FHFA sought to have the bank cover Freddie’s losses on defective MBS purchased from a $1.4 billion transaction.

In the wake of sharp increases in commercial bank borrowing from the Federal Home Loan Bank system in order to keep up with new international bank-liquidity rules, the Federal Housing Finance Agency should be more transparent in reporting FHLBank advances, according to the agency’s official watchdog. The FHFA’s Office of Inspector General noted in an audit released Wednesday that FHLBank system advances have been increasing, reaching $492 billion by year-end 2013. The growth in advances has been driven primarily by the four largest members of the system – JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency and the city of Chicago have reached a face-saving settlement in a longstanding legal dispute over whether Fannie and Freddie, as entities under federal conservatorship, are subject to the city’s vacant-building ordinance. Under the terms of a settlement reached earlier this month but announced last week, the two GSEs will voluntarily register vacant properties with the city but won’t be subject to a $500 registration fee. The FHFA will also no longer seek to recover registration fees or penalties already paid to Chicago.

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 ...

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 ...