The IG's office of the Federal Housing Finance Agency is working with various U.S. Attorneys on reviews of lenders’ loan origination practices to determine their compliance with enterprise requirements.

The civil action entails the alleged taking from WJB of some 5,000 loan files. It should be noted that these aren’t just any LOs – the group in question ranks among the top producers in the nation.

According to an analysis from Inside MBS & ABS, barring a sudden, unexpected shift in strategy, the Fed by the end of this year will exceed the total MBS holdings of commercial banks and thrifts.

Commercial banks continued to see their investment in residential MBS slowly evaporate during the third quarter of 2013 even though the overall market appears to finally be growing again. A new Inside MBS & ABS analysis of recently-released call report data shows that commercial banks and thrifts held a combined $1.513 trillion of residential MBS as of the end of September. That was down 1.0 percent from the end of June and represented the lowest level since the middle of 2011. Depositories and other private MBS investors have...[Includes two data charts]

In just a matter of days, JPMorgan Chase agreed to two separate settlements totaling $17.5 billion to resolve federal and state civil claims as well as representation and warranty and servicing claims involving residential MBS. On Nov. 19, the Department of Justice, along with other federal and state agencies, announced a $13 billion settlement with JPMorgan, which acknowledged making misrepresentations about billions of dollars in MBS sold to investors prior to Jan. 1, 2009. The settlement is said to be the largest combination of damages and civil fines for a single entity in U.S. history. Most of the damage was inflicted...

The Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing to take more cases to trial in lieu of settling, according to Mary Jo White, chair of the SEC, who prompted a change in the agency’s protocol for settling cases with no admission or denial of guilt. “In this age of diminishing trials, we at the SEC may be about to reverse the trend a bit,” White said in a speech late last week. Shortly after White took over as chair of the SEC, she said...

At a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, criticized FHFA Acting Director Ed DeMarco for his plan to reduce both the conforming loan limit and the high-cost limit.

The regulatory regime currently contemplated in government-sponsored enterprise reform legislation in the Senate doesn’t go far enough, according to officials at the Federal Housing Finance Agency and others. At a hearing this week by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Alfred Pollard, general counsel at the FHFA, testified that the regulatory functions included in GSE reform legislation from Sens. Bob Corker, R-TN, and Mark Warner, D-VA, should be enhanced. “Making regulatory authority clear and explicit, including where appropriate the ability to establish prudential standards, set capital requirements and take enforcement actions, would enhance...

Members of the Federal Open Market Committee kicked around various approaches to winding down the central bank’s third installment of quantitative easing during their policy meeting last month, but ultimately didn’t budge the ship off its bearings. Recently released minutes of the Oct. 29-30 FMOC policy meeting revealed that participants “generally expected that the data would prove consistent with the committee’s outlook for ongoing improvement in labor-market conditions and would thus warrant trimming the pace of purchases in coming months.” However, committee members also considered...

Industry observers who closely follow the GSEs predict that other private-equity firms and hedge funds will continue to buy the preferred and common shares of Fannie and Freddie, believing they can flip the stock for a quick profit or receive a pay-out down the road.