The changes the CFPB wants to make to its 2013 mortgage servicing rules under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and the Truth in Lending Act got a mixed reception from the mortgage industry. The proposed rule was issued in mid-December, and the public comment period closed last week. The proposed amendments cover nine primary topics: successors in interest, definition of delinquency, requests for information, force-placed insurance, early intervention, loss mitigation, prompt payment crediting, periodic statements, and small servicer issues. The Independent Community Bankers of America was pleased with the bureau’s proposed amendment to the small servicer definition that will permit a small servicer to service, for a fee, mortgage loans that are seller-financed transactions subject to certain limitations. ...

Credit unions support a CFPB proposal that would let them off the hook for one year when it comes to submitting their credit card agreements to the bureau while the agency works to develop a more streamlined and automated electronic submission system. Other requirements, including card issuers’ obligations to post currently-offered agreements on their own Web sites, would remain unaffected by the proposed rule, which was issued in February. Currently, card issuers are required to send agreements to the bureau manually through e-mail. The CFPB intends to come up with a new system through which card issuers would be able to upload agreements directly to the bureau’s database and eliminate the process of e-mail submissions. Among the supporters was the ...

Loan Modification Trial Payment Plans for Forward Mortgages. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has announced requirements for trial plan duration, required signatures, and reporting for trial payment-plan agreements, and the conditions under which FHA deems a TPP to have failed.Lenders must implement the requirements in Mortgagee Letter 2015-07 for all TPPs offered to borrowers on or after June 1, 2015. FHA Publishes Additional Sections of HUD Single-Family Policy Handbook. The FHA has published additional sections for the SF Handbook, including the following: Doing Business with FHA – Lenders and Mortgagees Doing Business with FHA – Other participants in FHA Transactions – Appraisers; Quality Control, Oversight and Compliance – Lenders and Mortgagees; Quality Control Oversight, and Compliance – Other Participants in FHA Transactions – Appraisers ...

While Wall Street professionals spent the run-up to this week’s meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee wondering whether the Fed would lose its “patience” regarding a future increase in interest rates, the FOMC continued its present course on MBS investment. “The committee is maintaining its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and agency MBS in agency MBS and of rolling over maturing ...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture-Rural Housing Service has proposed to revise regulations for the single-family housing guaranteed loan program pertaining to qualified-mortgage (QM) requirements, refinancing, principal reduction and lender indemnification. The deadline for comments is May 4, 2015.The RHS is proposing to amend its regulations to indicate that a loan with an RHS guarantee is a qualified mortgage if it meets certain requirements set by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB published a QM rule, which became effective on Jan. 10, 2014. Among other things, the rule requires creditors to make a reasonable, good faith determination of a borrower’s ability to repay the mortgage loan. In addition, the rule establishes a safe harbor from liability for transactions that meet the QM requirements or, in certain cases, a rebuttable presumption of ...

More than a year after standards for qualified mortgages took effect, a number of lenders are willing to offer non-QMs, but production has been concentrated on affluent borrowers. Lenders seem less willing to offer non-QMs to borrowers with lower credit scores or higher loan-to-value ratios. For the past year, Nationstar Mortgage has been working toward offering a non-QM refinance product. The loan would target non-agency borrowers in the nonbank’s large servicing ...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposal to significantly expand the regulatory requirements related to successors in interest poses legal risks, threatens personal privacy and could foster instances of fraud, mortgage industry officials said. The provisions related to successors in interest are part of a package of proposed amendments to the bureau’s 2013 mortgage rules under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and the Truth in Lending Act ...

Commercial banks and thrifts reported another decline in their ABS holdings during the fourth quarter of 2014, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis of call-report data. In aggregate, banks and thrifts held $159.22 billion of ABS in their held-to-maturity and available-for-sale retained portfolios as of the end of last year. That was the industry’s lowest level of ABS investment since the middle of 2012, and it represented a 3.1 percent drop from a revised third-quarter total of $164.35 billion. The biggest component in the aggregate portfolio was...[Includes two data charts]

While most of the 18 financial institutions sued by the Federal Housing Finance Agency in 2011 have settled allegations of securities law violations, underwriting flaws and fraud related to non-agency mortgage-based securities, one bank, Nomura Holding America Inc., plans to take the case all the way to trial.

Industry participants continue to call for changes to how the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau operates its consumer complaint database. A proposal in December to renew the CFPB’s Consumer Response Intake Form drew criticism from the Mortgage Bankers Association and others. “CFPB and industry data both show that a small fraction of consumer complaints warrant any action beyond an explanation,” Stephen O’Connor, a senior vice president of public policy and industry relations at the MBA, said in a comment letter to the CFPB. The Office of Management and Budget approved...