Testifying before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and GSEs this week, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency took issue with some of the proposed bills in the legislative package intended to wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. “I appreciate the effort in these and other bills to begin moving towards a final resolution of the enterprises in conservatorship, but I also recognize the critical and contemporaneous need to provide market participants with greater clarity and assurance about the ultimate role of the government in housing finance beyond the issues surrounding the enterprises,” said...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has gone to court in order to deal itself into a wrongful termination suit filed last year by a former Fannie Mae executive against the GSE. According to papers filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the FHFA sought a temporary stay of the lawsuit, citing its authority as Fannie’s conservator under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. “The conservator’s participation will aid the parties and the court in resolving the issues presented in this action, including the issue of Fannie Mae’s status vis-à-vis the federal government as it relates to the plaintiff’s claims,” said the Finance Agency in...

While federal agencies gather comments on a proposed rule to establish margin and capital requirements for various swap entities, experts say it’s not altogether clear how the proposed rule would apply to the GSEs. Final comments are due June 24 on a rule proposed by five federal agencies that would require swap entities regulated by the agencies to collect minimum amounts of initial margin and variation margin from counterparties to non-cleared swaps and non-cleared security-based swaps. The five agencies that issued the proposed rule last month are the Federal Reserve, the Farm Credit Administration, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp...

The head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency urged House Republican sponsors of various bills aimed at reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to include the government-sponsored enterprises’ regulator as part of the solution to avoid the problem of the two sides working at cross purposes. “FHFA and the enterprises are facing challenging times as Congress considers legislation to restrict, transform and wind down the enterprises,” said Edward DeMarco, acting director of the FHFA, during a hearing in the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and GSEs this week. “During this period, I respectfully ask that...

Industry representatives are making headway in obtaining clarification from the Federal Reserve on various aspects of the agency’s controversial regulation on loan originator compensation. But there are a number of key questions that still have to be addressed, and until they are, lenders need to proceed carefully, according to a top official at one of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders. One area in which the industry needs clarification has to do with compensation based on “time spent” as it pertains to different loan programs and products, and whether compensation can be established on a loan-by-loan basis or by...

The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau generated a lot of press last week when it released two new prototype mortgage disclosure forms that are noticeably more user-friendly for borrowers than those currently in use under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act...

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency recently released a letter on preemption maintaining that, under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, its 2004 preemption rule still applies to national banks...

A new survey from ING DIRECT has found that 56 percent of homebuyers do not use the Good Faith Estimate as it was intended - to shop around and compare mortgage offers to get the best possible deal...

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Two Leadership Hires Made. Harvard University Professor of Economics Sendhil Mullainathan has been hired to serve as assistant director for research at the CFPB...

There is "not even a whiff of a hint of a compromise" between Congressional Republicans and President Obama and his fellow Democrats in Congress over the possible appointment of Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren to be director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to some industry insiders...