The CFPB recently issued a request for information into ways to expand access to credit for consumers who are “credit invisible,” that is, those who don’t have enough credit history to generate a credit score. The bureau issued the RFI to drum up public feedback on “the benefits and risks of tapping alternative data sources such as bills for mobile phones and rent payments to make lending decisions about consumers whose lack of credit history might otherwise block opportunities.” According to the CFPB, there are 26 million Americans who are credit invisibles. “Another 19 million consumers have a credit history that has gone stale, or is insufficient to produce a credit score under most scoring models,” said the agency. The ...
Another Trump Executive Order Targets Regulatory Red Tape. Late last week, President Trump signed another executive order focused on government regulations – this one requiring every agency to establish a regulatory reform task force to eliminate red tape. ... ABA Offers CFPB Some Suggestions to Protect Shared Consumer Data. The American Bankers Association recently had some advice for the CFPB for protecting consumers’ financial information that is being voluntarily shared with third-party data aggregators....
With Republicans now in control of the White House and both houses of Congress, Hensarling plans to make even more cuts to regulations for rating services.
Could this be an omen of the decision to come? Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted the CFPB’s request for an en banc rehearing in its controversial legal dispute, PHH Corp. v. CFPB. “Upon consideration of respondent’s [CFPB] petition for rehearing en banc, the briefs amici curiae in support of the petition, the response of the United States to the petition, the response of the petitioners [PHH Corp.] to the petition, the supplemental response of petitioners, and the vote in favor of the petition by a majority of judges eligible to participate, it is ordered the petition be granted,” 10 of the court’s 11 justices wrote in their ruling. One of ...
Despite a Feb. 21 ruling barring GSE shareholders from making illegal Treasury sweep claims, plaintiffs and speculators are keeping hope alive. In Perry Capital LLC vs. Treasury, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia put a stop to shareholders who have been arguing that the government is illegally confiscating GSE profits, citing language in the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. The Appeals Court notes: “We hold that the stockholders’ statutory claims are barred by the Recovery Act’s strict limitation on judicial review … We also reject most of the stockholders’ common-law claims. Insofar as we have subject matter jurisdiction over the stockholders’ common-law claims against...
Several more documents were released in relation to an ongoing GSE shareholder case out to prove that the government knew Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were on the path to profitability at the time the Treasury sweep was put in place.The release came after a judge rejected the government’s appeal of an earlier ruling requiring it to turn over a slew of documents for which it had asserted various forms of privilege in Fairholme Funds vs. United States, et al. All of the latest documents are from 2012. They include a July 20, 2012, memo stating “thoughts on how to signal a plan to amend the preferred stock purchase agreements,” from Treasury...
Most real estate investment trusts that invest in MBS and other mortgage-related assets reported declines in their holdings of agency and non-agency securities during the fourth quarter, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis. The top publicly traded REITs had a combined residential MBS portfolio valued at $228.28 billion as of the end of 2016. That was down 3.5 percent from the previous quarter and off 6.5 percent from the end of 2015. The figures are preliminary because several smaller REITs have not yet reported fourth-quarter results. Agency MBS continued...[Includes one data table]
Planned revisions to the Financial CHOICE Act would loosen regulation of rating services, according to a recent memo by Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Hensarling sent the memo to the leadership team of the House Financial Services Committee this month detailing changes that will be included in hise so-called CHOICE Act 2.0. The expected revisions to standards for nationally recognized statistical rating organizations go well beyond the rollbacks included in the version of the CHOICE Act that was introduced in September. The 2016 bill would have repealed...
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