Best Odds of Success in Making Consumer Complaint Data Confidential Rest With a New Director at the CFPB. Industry observers and lobbyists are increasingly of the view that the most likely way the industry will see the kind of substantive regulatory reform and relief it needs is not through federal legislation, but rather from a new director at the CFPB... ICYMI: The Financial CHOICE Act Would Exclude AMCs from Points and Fees Calculations. One overlooked provision in H.R. 10, the Financial CHOICE Act, which was passed by the House of Representatives on June 13, deals with residential mortgage appraisals...

Earlier this month, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky ruled against the CFPB and in favor of a Kentucky law firm over allegations it paid kickbacks in violation of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. The bureau accused the Borders & Borders law firm of Louisville, KY, and its principals, Harry Borders, John Borders Jr. and J. David Borders, of illegally paying kickbacks for real estate settlement referrals through a network of shell companies. The case began back in February 2011 when the Department of Housing and Urban Development notified the law firm it was being investigated for potential violations of RESPA’s anti-kickback provision. In April 2012, the CFPB advised Borders & Borders that it, rather ...

New documents were recently unsealed in Fairholme Funds vs. United States that give GSE shareholders more hope in proving the Treasury sweep was designed with an ulterior motive in mind.“The release of these documents is a very positive development in the case against Fannie [Mae] and Freddie [Mac]. These documents fatally undermine the government’s claim,” said Pete Patterson, a partner with the Cooper & Kirk law firm representing the plaintiffs. Officials from Treasury have repeatedly said that the sweep was designed to prevent the two mortgage giants from collapsing. But the latest batch of 33 confidential emails and memos released under court order appears to illustrate otherwise.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders claimed that recently unsealed government documents support their contention that the main goal of the Treasury Department’s quarterly sweep of the government-sponsored enterprises’ earnings was to keep the two GSEs in conservatorship. Officials from Treasury have consistently said that the sweep was designed to prevent the two mortgage giants from collapsing. But the latest batch of 33 confidential emails and memos released under court order in the case of Fairholme Funds vs. United States seems to illustrate otherwise. The documents were unsealed...

With inflation weakening and continuing to lag behind the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee’s 2 percent target, the Fed this week surprised no one and unanimously decided to leave the federal funds target rate unchanged at 1.00 percent to 1.25 percent. The U.S. central bank also indicated it will likely begin to gradually unload its enormous balance sheet “relatively soon,” which market participants and observers read as sometime this fall – probably with an announcement in September, with run-off set to begin in October. In terms of its portfolio, the FOMC said...

The Federal Reserve’s effort to normalize its balance sheet later this year would cause no significant falloff in the agency mortgage-backed securities market over the next six to 12 months, according to global investment firm Loomis Sayles. In an analysis, the firm concluded that agency MBS remain attractive for now with modest excess returns for agency MBS versus Treasurys. “We favor a modest overweight agency MBS stance versus Treasurys for the remainder of 2017 and ...

While policymakers in Washington, DC, are paying renewed attention to housing-finance reform, some industry representatives took advantage of the opportunity provided by a related hearing on Capitol Hill to also urge changes be made to a number of the mortgage-related rules promulgated in recent years by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Bond giant PIMCO issued a report that called for a handful of key revisions to the mortgage regulatory landscape before any reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is undertaken. “To bring capital back to the private mortgage market and ensure credit is extended...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to make some significant, but as yet unspecified, changes to its mortgage servicing rule sometime this fall, in response to concerns raised by the industry, the bureau revealed in a blog posting about its latest semiannual rulemaking agenda. The agency said it is “considering concerns raised by industry participants regarding a few substantive aspects of the mortgage servicing rule that we used in August 2016. These aspects may be posing particular complexities for implementation that were not anticipated in the course of the original rulemaking. We expect to issue a proposal to make one or more substantive changes to the rule in response to these concerns this fall – perhaps as early as September.” Edward Mills, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets & Co., said...

A sharp increase in business-finance ABS issuance offset declines in other sectors to lift overall ABS production during the second quarter of 2017, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking. The market produced $59.31 billion of new non-mortgage ABS during the second quarter, an 11.1 percent increase over the first three months of the year. That brought year-to-date issuance up to $112.68 billion, a 30.4 percent gain over the first six months of 2016. The star performer was...[Includes two data tables]

Pacific Investment Management Company published an opinion piece this week calling for changes in the non-agency market before policymakers enact reforms that affect the government-sponsored enterprises. PIMCO was also critical of other GSE reform proposals. “Without a functioning private mortgage market, it will be nearly impossible for the GSEs to shrink their footprint without significant disruption to the housing market and to the underlying homeownership rate,” PIMCO said. PIMCO was...