As soon as next week, the House could vote to approve a regulatory relief bill that already passed the Senate. Among numerous other provisions, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act would grant qualified mortgage status to certain loans held in portfolio by smaller banks even if the mortgages would otherwise be non-QMs. Mick Mulvaney, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, also said ... [Includes four briefs]

Acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney announced last week that he plans to restructure an office that aims to help student loan borrowers. Many consumer advocates worried that the change will strip the office of all functions except for consumer education. In a memo obtained by Inside the CFPB, Mulvaney announced to all staffers that the Office of Students and Young Consumers will be folded into the Office of Financial Education. Both offices are part of the bureau’s Consumer Education ...

PHH Corp. decided not to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a lower court ruling that effectively overturned the CFPB’s controversial interpretation of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act under former Director Richard Cordray. The lender’s lawsuit also unsuccessfully challenged the constitutionality of the CFPB. In January, the en banc panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with PHH on the RESPA components of the dispute, invalidating ...

Mortgage lenders spent a considerable amount of money implementing the qualified-mortgage rule, and many are not keen about a major overhaul, according to a survey by Strategic Mortgage Finance Group. Some 54 percent of 122 respondents to the survey favored no or only modest changes to QM rules. There was little variation between banks and independents, or large and small lenders. However, lender attitudes on regulatory change vary significantly with the size of ...

The House last week voted to kill the CFPB’s auto lending guidance, but the chances of a similar override of the bureau’s payday rule are fading, attorneys said. In a 234-175 vote, the House repealed Obama-era CFPB guidance on indirect auto lending that subjected auto dealers and others to liability for discriminatory price markups. The Senate passed the Congressional Review Act resolution last month, and President Trump is expected to sign the rollback. Congress used the CRA ...

A group of Democratic senators is asking the U.S. Office of Special Counsel to investigate whether Acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney violated the Hatch Act. The acting director last month said to bankers that he “had a hierarchy” in his office in Congress and only talked to lobbyists who gave him financial donations when he was a member of the House of Representatives from South Carolina. “It raises troubling questions about whether his statements ran afoul of the Hatch Act ...

The House Could Vote on the Reg Relief Bill By Memorial Day. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-WI, last week said the House will take up S. 2155, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, as currently written and free from amendment. “We’ve got an agreement to be moving different pieces of legislation,” Ryan said. “So, we will be moving [S. 2155]. We’re also going to be moving in the Senate a package of bills that we think [Includes four briefs] ...

The conversation on GSE reform has shifted heavily as we approach midyear, having gone from optimism on congressional legislation to discussions on administrative options. And two Washington, DC-based think tanks recently offered their thoughts on reform and both point to 2019. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said last week that housing-finance reform will not happen this year. Karen Petrou, managing partner with Federal Financial Analytics, called this the “death knell” for GSE reform in this Congress. And she added that he didn’t seem sorry to deliver it. “With Mel Watt’s term as Federal Housing Finance Agency director coming to a close, Treasury...

Investors arguing that the net worth sweep was unjust hit a roadblock late last week when the Seventh Circuit Court ruled that they can’t claim GSE profits post-conservatorship.This latest ruling also led the Federal Housing Finance Agency to try to influence the outcome in similar cases against the agency. The shareholders sought to overturn a 2017 ruling in which a federal judge went against them and granted the government’s motion to dismiss the complaint.In this case, Christopher Roberts, et al., vs. the Federal Housing Finance Agency et al., similar to other shareholder complaints, investors argued that the...

About 70.4 percent of the home loans originated in 2017 were sold to secondary market investors, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data released this week. According to the preliminary HMDA data made available by federal regulators, lenders reported $1.738 trillion in first-lien single-family mortgage originations in 2017. HMDA data cover about 96 percent of the market. The biggest buyers were Fannie Mae ... [Includes one data chart]