The White House has placed former federal housing commissioner Nic Retsinas on its list of possible candidates to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, industry officials familiar with the matter told Inside Mortgage Finance.
Happy New Year? It is if youre a mortgage attorney charging billable hours to lenders that are trying to make sense of an array of pending rules coming out of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and other agencies.
Residential servicers, in certain cases, will need to navigate substantial legal and regulatory crosscurrents when it comes to new and pending federal and state requirements, a representative for the nations largest loan processor told participants during a recent webinar sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance.
The Obama administration may want to think twice before moving ahead with reported plans to replace Edward DeMarco, the Federal Housing Finance Agencys acting director, says a long time industry observer.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may reconsider certain regulatory exemptions to its servicing rules as they pertain to small servicers, agency counsel Mitchell Hochberg said during an Inside Mortgage Finance webinar late Tuesday afternoon.
The American Bankers Insurance Association is calling upon the CFPB to reconsider the "force-placed" insurance notice provisions in the bureau's newly issued mortgage servicing rules, arguing they go beyond what the Dodd-Frank Act intended, could disrupt the market in unintended ways and have a negative effect on consumers. Force-placed insurance is coverage that the servicer buys on the property when the borrower no longer has property insurance. Without such coverage, whoever holds the mortgage would be at risk if the house were to be damaged or destroyed. But often the borrower may be responsible...
The CFPB has promulgated its loan originator compensation final rule, perhaps most notable for what it didn't include. Industry groups had urged the bureau to drop from the final rule its proposed "zero-zero alternative that would have required lenders to offer a loan option with no discount points or origination fees any time they offered a mortgage with such payment features. Industry representatives said...
CFPB, Agencies Eyeing Social Media Contacts for Consumer Protection. The CFPB and the other five agencies that comprise the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council are proposing supervisory guidance on federal consumer protection and compliance requirements as they apply to social media used by banks, savings associations and credit unions, as well as by nonbank entities. Upon completion of the guidance, and after consideration of comments received from the public, the federal financial institution regulatory agencies will issue it as supervisory guidance to the institutions that they supervise and the State Liaison Committee of the FFIEC will encourage state regulators to adopt the guidance, the proposal stated. Accordingly, institutions will be expected to use the guidance in their efforts to ensure that their policies and procedures provide oversight and controls commensurate with the risks posed by their social media activities. Bureau Considers Helping Americans with Retirement Savings. The CFPB is contemplating whether to get involved in helping Americans manage the $19.4 trillion they have put into retirement savings, Bloomberg News reported recently. Thats one of the things weve been exploring and are interested in, in terms of whether and what authority we have, Director Richard Cordray said in an interview with the news organization. CFPB Proposes...