The Inspector General of the Federal Housing Finance Agency is among a growing list of official government watchdog agencies authorized to employ armed investigators when ferreting out waste, fraud and abuse, according to a recent report. The report issued by the Congressional Research Service listed some three dozen IGs that possess law enforcement authority, which legally empowers them to make arrests, seek warrants and carry firearms.
IG Recommends FHFA Upgrade Its Recordkeeping. The Federal Housing Finance Agency is in compliance with its recordkeeping procedures but the policy and infrastructure of its records management could do with an upgrade, concluded an evaluation by FHFA’s Inspector General last week. The IG said that the Finance Agency’s Division of Enterprise Regulation’s recordkeeping practices “have limitations that impede the efficient retrieval” of examination workpapers by agency staff and by IG auditors.
New regulations in the mortgage industry have wreaked havoc on the business, with lenders facing higher compliance risk and growing compliance costs, according to Fannie Mae’s third quarter survey of mortgage lender sentiment. The results show that 72 percent of lenders reported that recent regulations, among them the qualified-mortgage rule and the risk-based capital rules for banks, have had a “significant” impact on their business. Only 22 percent reported “minimal” impact ...
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is poised to formally launch its e-closing pilot project shortly, with an eye towards simplifying the mortgage closing process for both borrowers and lenders and eliminating many of the “pain points” associated with it. “We are looking to kick off the pilot later this year and run it for about three months,” said Brian Webster, program manager for the bureau’s Office of Mortgage Markets, during a meeting of the CFPB’s Community Bank Advisory Council ...
Zandi and deRitis believe that the FHA is on track to be able to lower its mortgage insurance premiums by 50 basis points to an average of 120 basis points for total upfront and annual premiums.
More trouble for Walter Investment Management? Meanwhile, according to NTC, as many as 490,000 homeowners could be affected by faulty servicer database records.
State regulators recently proposed expanding the data that state-licensed lenders must report on the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry’s mortgage call report. The State Regulatory Registry said the data help state regulators supervise licensees, determine examination schedules, monitor compliance and calculate assessments. The SRR was established by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors and the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators. The SRR owns and operates the NMLS and has required state-licensed lenders to submit quarterly call report data since 2011. On Oct. 1, the SRR proposed...[Includes one data chart]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last week proposed two narrow revisions to its complex mortgage origination disclosure rule, leaving the industry guessing what further changes could come as lenders gear up to implement a massive rule known as TRID: the Truth-in-Lending/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act integrated disclosure. For most lenders, the most significant proposed change would relax the requirement that lenders provide a revised loan estimate on the same day that a consumer’s rate is locked. After considering industry feedback, CFPB staff concluded that such a short turnaround may be challenging for lenders that allow consumers to lock interest rates late in the day or after business hours. This could mean...
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