A partisan debate is brewing in the Senate over whether a more complex regulatory system could actually lead to increased systemic risk for U.S. banks even as House Republicans weigh proposals to eliminate financial and consumer protections under the Dodd-Frank Act. Discussions in the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs this week revolved around the Basel and Dodd-Frank capital and liquidity requirements and whether they are forcing big and small banks to focus more on safety and soundness instead of meeting the needs of consumers and the economy. Post-crisis financial regulations have become...

Portfolio lenders would get an expanded safe harbor from litigation under the qualified mortgage standard in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability-to-repay rule under a proposed Republican replacement of the controversial Dodd-Frank Act. “Our plan ... provides critically needed mortgage relief with reforms that let community banks back into the mortgage business and ensure qualified borrowers can purchase a home while preserving prudent underwriting standards,” said House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, in a speech at the Economic Club of New York on Tuesday morning. “Changes include an ability-to-repay safe harbor for loans held on portfolio, ensuring the availability of mortgage credit for manufactured homes, fixing the way points and fees are calculated, and exempting small servicers from escrow requirements.” The proposal, the Financial CHOICE (Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs) Act, includes...

The CFPB deserves a lot of credit for successfully taking on so many challenges simultaneously when it was created by the Dodd-Frank Act, a former bureau official said. Yet, numerous challenges continue to confront the bureau. “I think, from an accomplishment perspective, it’s been amazing for the bureau to be able to establish the infrastructure for a brand new federal agency at the same time that it’s been very active in evolving new rules and also pursuing supervision and enforcement and consumer response activities,” said Quyen Truong. She is a former assistant director and deputy general counsel of the CFPB from 2012-2016 (right after the Elizabeth Warren era), having joined Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP as a partner in ...

Although mortgage delinquency rates are once again at pre-crash levels, servicing costs continue to rise, leading some factions of the industry to ask whether Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should increase the standard 25 basis point fee they pay to their servicers. The issue of higher servicing compensation was raised by an individual lender during the audience Q&A at a panel featuring the top single-family executives of the two government-sponsored enterprises at last week’s secondary market conference sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Both noted that servicing has changed significantly since the housing crisis, and that the Federal Housing Finance Agency has directed them to review servicing compensation. Subsequent interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance revealed...

Risk-retention requirements included in the Dodd-Frank Act that met strong opposition from industry participants may turn out to be a profit source for some real estate investment trusts. Non-agency MBS have been subject to risk-retention requirements since the end of 2015, while the rules go into effect at the end of this year for commercial MBS and other asset classes. “I believe...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last week issued annotated versions of the loan estimate and closing disclosure forms that provide citations to the disclosure provisions in Chapter 2 of the Truth in Lending Act referenced in the integrated disclosure rule. However, neither of the two documents appear to go anywhere near providing the kind of clarity the industry hopes to get from the agency’s recently announced new TRID rulemaking. In fact, the documents are more notable for what they do not provide than for what they do. “This document does not include...

Hensarling Slams CFPB, Vows Big Changes to Dodd-Frank, the Bureau. During a speech last week at the National Center for Policy Analysis, Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, pledged to push a package of pro-growth, pro-consumer reforms as an alternative to the Dodd-Frank Act, including clipping the wings of the CFPB. “At almost every opportunity, the bureau abuses and exceeds its statutory authority, which is already immense,” said the congressman. “The bureau operates with such secrecy, unaccountability, and bureaucratic tyranny it would make a Soviet Commissar blush.”As the committee moves forward with its plans for financial reform, Hensarling promised the Republicans will have ...

Trade groups involved in home sales and appraisal issues are calling for a hearing in Congress regarding the future of appraisal regulation. The American Bankers Association, the Appraisal Foundation, the Appraisal Institute, the National Association of Home Builders and the National Association of Realtors made the requests in letters to Congress. …

In the continuing wake of industry concerns about the TRID disclosure rule and worries about large retroactive fines, the Community Home Lenders Association says the CFPB should provide more balanced regulatory and enforcement policies toward smaller nonbank mortgage lenders and improve compliance guidance and due process. Asserting that nonbank mortgage lenders, including community-based lenders, have recently “led the way” in providing access to mortgage credit and providing more personalized loan servicing, the CHLA said “any regulatory policies that have the effect of imposing a disproportionate compliance burden on smaller lender/servicers can accelerate industry consolidation – which in turn can result in fewer consumer choices and less personalized service.” The trade group had three main recommendations for the bureau, the first of ...

It should come as no surprise to mortgage originators and servicers that the CFPB has significantly ramped up its examination activity of their operations over the last year. Data provided exclusively to Inside the CFPB from the bureau per a Freedom of Information Act request reveal there was a 70 percent increase in mortgage-related exams in 2015 from the prior year. As the accompanying chart illustrates, nonbanks have been having an even more active degree of scrutiny from the bureau than have depository institutions. Nonbank originators have seen an 85.7 percent increase in exam activity year over year, versus depositories, which have seen a rise of “only” 42.9 percent during that period. And it is even worse for nonbank servicers. ...