Standard & Poor’s earned a split decision this week in its counter-offensive against the federal government’s civil fraud lawsuit filed last year, which the rating agency claims is payback for its August 2011 downgrade of the U.S.’ ‘AAA’ credit rating. The Justice Department in February 2013 filed a $5.0 billion lawsuit against S&P accusing it of knowingly inflating its ratings of residential MBS and collateralized debt obligations to boost its revenue and market share in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis. On Tuesday, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, CA, denied...
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to announce a voluntary pilot project next week related to its efforts to streamline and improve the mortgage-closing process – an initiative likely to rely heavily on the industry’s latest technological capabilities, and perhaps stimulate some innovation in the process. The pilot will be formally announced on Wednesday during a live online webcast of a public forum the bureau plans to conduct at its headquarters in Washington, DC ...
It’s been a full three months since the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability-to-repay final rule and qualified-mortgage definition have been implemented. So far, there have been no significant changes to origination strategies on the part of lenders, according to a Standard & Poor’s survey of rated mortgage lenders. “In terms of projected regulatory impact on recent lending activity, 84 percent of 2013 mortgage production was QM compliant, with the remaining ...
There are a variety of components for a successful compliance-management program mortgage lenders should implement, but the primary goal needs to be preventing harm to consumers, according to bank examiners with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. “Given the challenges associated with the regulatory environment of today, we’d like to emphasize the importance of looking at bank operations while asking two questions from a consumer compliance perspective,” said ...
The Federal Housing Finance Agency and the city of Chicago have reached a face-saving settlement in a longstanding legal dispute over whether Fannie and Freddie, as entities under federal conservatorship, are subject to the city’s vacant-building ordinance. Under the terms of a settlement reached earlier this month but announced last week, the two GSEs will voluntarily register vacant properties with the city but won’t be subject to a $500 registration fee. The FHFA will also no longer seek to recover registration fees or penalties already paid to Chicago.
In the wake of sharp increases in commercial bank borrowing from the Federal Home Loan Bank system in order to keep up with new international bank-liquidity rules, the Federal Housing Finance Agency should be more transparent in reporting FHLBank advances, according to the agency’s official watchdog. The FHFA’s Office of Inspector General noted in an audit released Wednesday that FHLBank system advances have been increasing, reaching $492 billion by year-end 2013. The growth in advances has been driven primarily by the four largest members of the system – JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo.
A New York state judge last week dismissed with prejudice a $567 million legal action brought by the Federal Housing Finance Agency against Deutsche Bank in 2012 over the bank’s refusal to repurchase hundreds of millions of residential mortgage-backed securities from Freddie Mac. Judge Eileen Bransten of New York’s State Supreme Court in Manhattan ruled the FHFA’s suit is barred by New York’s six-year statute of limitations.The FHFA sought to have the bank cover Freddie’s losses on defective MBS purchased from a $1.4 billion transaction.
The Dodd-Frank Act prompted major changes for mortgage joint ventures, with some firms striking out on their own and others sticking with the smaller market.
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