The House Financial Services Committee this week marked up legislation to block pay raises for the top executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and to extend qualified-mortgage status to loans originated for an institution’s retained portfolio. H.R. 1210, the Portfolio Lending and Mortgage Access Act, introduced by Rep. Andy Barr, R-KY, would extend qualified-mortgage protection from litigation and enforcement actions for mortgages originated and retained in portfolio by depository institutions. “This would incentivize private-sector risk retention,” said Barr. Rep. John Carney, D-DE, said...

W.J. Bradley Mortgage recently settled a civil suit filed against one of its competitors, RPM Mortgage, regarding the alleged theft of customer loan files by a top-ranked and recruited loan officer. In a statement, RPM said: “We are pleased that the litigation with W.J. Bradley has been settled. As always, the confidentiality of client information is of paramount importance to RPM.” W.J. Bradley, the original plaintiff in the matter, would not comment...

The Government Accountability Office wants federal regulators responsible for reviewing the qualified mortgage and qualified residential mortgage rules to make sure they consider specific metrics and analytic methods. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the other federal agencies are slated to issue a review of the QM rule in January. The review of the QRM standard, part of a mortgage-securitization rule, won’t happen until 2019. So far, the regulatory agencies have identified...

An appeals court in the D.C. Circuit has ruled that a Texas bank has standing to challenge the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent federal agency that regulates consumer financial products and services. A three-person judicial panel unanimously overturned a 2013 district court ruling, which concluded that the plaintiff did not have standing and that its claims were not ripe. In State National Bank of Big Spring, TX, et al. v. Lew, et al., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reversed and ruled that the bank has standing to challenge the constitutionality of the CFPB as well as the recess appointment of its director, Richard Cordray. The bank, joined by two nonprofit organizations, originally filed...

State regulators have proposed changes to Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System & Registry licensing forms and call reports that would be a mixed bag for lenders, addressing some concerns while adding new reporting requirements. The proposal from the State Regulatory Registry, a subsidiary of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, comes two months after an initial request for comments regarding NMLS licensing forms and the mortgage call report (MCR). Comments on the proposal are due Aug. 20. State regulators stuck...

In particular, Wells said it would “withdraw from mortgage marketing services and desk rental agreements with real estate firms, builders and certain other referral sources.”

The regulator determined that consumers were lured with deceptive promises of savings and misled about when their payments would be applied.

“The question was a surprise to many investors and resulted in clients questioning whether a CFPB crackdown in the timeshare market was ahead,” writes Compass Point analyst Isaac Boltansky…

The CFPB last week finalized its earlier proposal to extend to Oct. 3, 2015, the effective date for its controversial integrated disclosure rule under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act: the so-called TRID. “The bureau believes that moving the effective date may benefit both industry and consumers with a smoother transition to the new rule,” the CFPB said in announcing the finalization. “The bureau further believes that scheduling the effective date on a Saturday may facilitate implementation by giving industry time over the weekend to launch new systems configurations and to test systems.” Further, “A Saturday launch is also consistent with industry plans tied to the original effective date of Saturday, August 1.” The ...

The CFPB last week ordered Citibank and its subsidiaries to provide an estimated $700 million in relief to eligible consumers harmed by allegedly illegal practices related to credit card add-on products and services. Citibank and its subsidiaries also will pay $35 million in civil money penalties to the CFPB. Roughly 7 million consumer accounts were affected by Citibank’s deceptive marketing, billing, and administration of debt protection and credit monitoring add-on products, said the bureau. A Citibank subsidiary also deceptively charged expedited payment fees to nearly 1.8 million consumer accounts during collection calls. More specifically, the bureau’s allegations of deceptive marketing include charges that Citi misrepresented the cost and fees for coverage, misrepresented the benefits of some products, used illegal practices ...