The CFPB is Still Open, Government Shutdown and Mick Mulvaney Notwithstanding. Much of the federal government in Washington, DC, is back in shutdown mode, after last-minute budgetary brinkmanship on Capitol Hill failed to keep the requisite funds flowing. ... Cordray to Face Kucinich in Contest for Democrat Nomination for Ohio Governor. Former Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-OH, recently filed paperwork with the Ohio Secretary of State’s office officially declaring his candidacy for the Democrat nomination for governor, an indication that former CFPB Director Richard Cordray will face plenty of opposition for the position....

Craig Phillips, counselor to the secretary at the U.S. Department of Treasury, advocated for a legislative solution to the ongoing conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He said the decision to allow the GSEs to retain a small capital buffer was a litmus test on housing reform. Although he said Treasury didn’t feel that Fannie and Freddie have an immediate capital problem because they have lines of credit, Phillips said there was somewhat of an “optical issue,” which led to the Treasury’s decision to allow the GSEs to retain up to $3 billion in capital in December. Speaking at a Women in Housing and Finance public policy luncheon in Washington, he said, “We think that decreases tension over this point. There was...

In a joint brief filed this week, federal respondents took issue with arguments made by GSE shareholders in their fight against the net worth sweep and said a shareholder petition for a Supreme Court review of their case should not be granted. Shareholders in several cases filed three petitions for a writ of certiorari back in November. The plaintiffs asked the Supreme Court of the United States to intervene to “restore certainty and uniformity.” They claim that the Federal Housing Finance Agency acted unconstitutionally when it imposed the net worth sweep.

The plan of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee to shrink the U.S. central bank’s huge balance sheet probably will unfold with a bit of a lag because of the uncertainty surrounding principal payments and the forward-settling nature of the to-be-announced MBS market, according to economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Angel Oak Capital Advisors saw stronger than expected demand from investors for a fund that focuses on non-qualified mortgages. AOCA announced last week that the private fund closed to new investors after raising $291 million, exceeding the initial goal of $250 million.

Members of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit convened early this week to consider legislation that would affect Home Mortgage Disclosure Act enforcement and certain institutions regulated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – mostly smaller players.

It’s possible that mortgage lenders and servicers will see the CFPB during the tenure of Acting Director Mick Mulvaney use the five-year “look back” the bureau is required to perform to make significant changes to a pair of major rulemakings: the Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act integrated disclosure rule (TRID) and the ability-to-repay rule. Donald Lampe, a partner with Morrison & Foerster law firm in Washington, DC, explained, “In Dodd-Frank, there’s a five-year required regulatory review, and there are two of those regulatory reviews that are still under advisement: one for TRID and the other for the ATR/qualified mortgage rule. “If I’m thinking about 2018, I feel pretty confident to say that those processes bear careful attention ...

As 2017 came to an end, the CFPB and other federal prudential regulators informed the industry they would implement a “good faith efforts” enforcement philosophy toward lender compliance with the new requirements under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act that took effect Jan. 1. The CFPB in 2015 put out its rule under which financial institutions were required to collect and report new mortgage data points for loans made after Jan. 1, 2018. This past August, the bureau released a final rule that clarified some reporting requirements, increased the threshold for collecting and reporting data on home equity lines of credit for two years, and made various technical corrections. “The bureau recognizes the significant systems and operational challenges needed to meet ...

In conjunction with the interagency regulatory pledge to pursue a “good faith efforts” approach to the enforcement of new reporting requirements under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, the CFPB also announced it plans to initiate a rulemaking to reconsider various aspects of the 2015 HMDA rule – most notably on issues such as the institutional and transactional coverage tests and the rule’s discretionary data points. “More specifically, the rulemaking may re-examine lending-activity criteria that determine whether institutions are required to report mortgage data,” it said. Other revisions might be made to the new requirements to report certain types of transactions. The bureau also is likely to re-assess the additional information that its HMDA rule requires beyond the new data points specified ...

Banks are increasingly worried about staying compliant with all the recent regulations they’re contending with – and the new Home Mortgage Disclosure Act requirements are still one of the biggest concerns. A new regulatory and risk management survey from Wolters Kluwer based on 2017 data registered a 3 percent increase over 2016. “The ability to maintain compliance in an environment of heightened regulatory oversight – highlighted by a spike in the number of major new regulations – remained the biggest overall compliance concern, as cited by 67 percent of respondents,” the report stated. Concerns over fair lending regulatory examinations increased by 5 percent to 46 percent, and concerns jumped 13 percent in measuring the ability to manage risk across all lines of business ...