Lenders will face increased fair-lending scrutiny even if they stick to originating loans that meet qualified-mortgage requirements, according to industry attorneys. While federal regulators have stated that a lender’s QM-only policy won’t increase fair-lending risk, a number of factors beyond QMs have prompted an increased focus on fair-lending issues. During a webinar this week hosted by Inside Mortgage Finance, Andrew Sandler, chairman and executive partner at the law firm of BuckleySandler, said he has never seen regulators work more closely together on fair-lending issues. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development are doing joint investigations. Sandler said...

A small mortgage lender that mostly provides loss mitigation financing to distressed homeowners has strayed into the CFPB's crosshairs and was compelled to pay $83,000 in a civil money penalty to settle charges it illegally split fees in violation of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. Begun in 2004, 1st Alliance Lending, LLC, is an East Hartford, CT-based lender that purchases troubled mortgages from servicers, and then reaches out to the affected borrowers and offers them new loans with reduced principal amounts under federal mortgage efforts such as the Hope for Homeowners program.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reported significant profits during the fourth quarter of 2013, capping a year in which rising guaranty fees had little impact on the market share of the two government-sponsored enterprises. Fannie reported net income for 2013 of $84.0 billion, compared to $17.2 billion in 2012, but over half of last year's earnings (roughly $45 billion) came from recaptured deferred tax assets. The company reported fourth-quarter earnings of $6.5 billion, its eighth consecutive quarterly profit. After it makes its next dividend payment to the Treasury Department in March, Fannie will have paid...

With the Federal Reserve acquiring a significant portion of new agency MBS issuance, the aggregate MBS holdings of banks and thrifts continued to decline in late 2013, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside MBS & ABS. Commercial banks and savings institutions held a total of $1.507 trillion of residential MBS in portfolio as of the end of last year, newly-released call-report data reveal. That was down 0.4 percent from the end of the third quarter and marked the industry’s fifth consecutive quarterly decline. Bank and thrift MBS holdings fell...[Includes two data charts]

Researchers at the Federal Reserve determined that, contrary to “the prevailing view in economics literature,” quantitative easing initiatives by the Fed over the past few years had an impact on the pricing and yields for agency MBS. In a new study, Fed analysts Diana Hancock and Wayne Passmore found that the central bank’s purchases of Treasury securities and agency MBS since 2008 lowered MBS yields and mortgage interest rates by more than what would have been suggested by changes in market expectations alone. Hancock and Passmore said...

Fannie Mae reported net earnings of $6.5 billion in the fourth quarter late this week, revealing that the company’s total dividend payments to the U.S. Treasury will exceed the $116.1 billion that the GSE has drawn since being put into conservatorship in late 2008. The company will pay the Treasury $7.2 billion in dividends in March. With the March dividend payment, Fannie will have paid a total of $121.1 billion in dividends to the Treasury – the equivalent amount of its entire draw plus an additional $5.0 billion.

A recently unearthed Treasury Department “action memorandum” from 2010 makes clear the White House’s commitment to ensuring that common shareholders in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should never have access “to any positive earnings from the GSEs in the future.” The memo, approved by then-Secretary Timothy Geithner, asks that Treasury waive the GSEs’ periodic commitment fee for 2011.

Some of the largest servicers could be violating fair-lending laws, according to an analysis by a the Government Accountability Office, while an alphabet soup of federal regulators overseeing fair lending issues appears to be treating servicing concerns like a hot potato. In a report issued late last week, the GAO said its analysis of loan-level data for the four largest servicers participating in the Home Affordable Modification Program suggests that there are fair-lending concerns that merit further examination. While the GAO didn’t identify the servicers, the four largest HAMP servicers are Ocwen Loan Servicing, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, according to the Treasury. The GAO found...

Just when mortgage lenders thought it was safe to go back in the water, the CFPB revealed a big shark fin earlier this month by indicating it intends to develop additional reporting requirements under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. “As Congress required in the Dodd-Frank Act, we are considering proposing rules that would make changes in how financial institutions report their mortgage activity,” CFPB Director Richard Cordray said. “One of the main purposes of this effort is to gain greater insight into issues about access to credit.”...

As part of the CFPB’s new push for additional reporting requirements under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, the bureau, in conjunction with the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, has released a new, fairly robust online tool to enable interested parties to explore mortgage data in ways previously unavailable. “Users now have more flexibility in how they sift through the data. They can filter it, download it, create summary tables, and share the results,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “The tool uses a format that is...