The CFPB officially made it clear again that it will propose a rule to define “larger participants of a market for auto lending,” according to the agency’s recently updated semi-annual rulemaking agenda. The bureau is also now in the process of finalizing a rule defining larger participants in the international money transfer market, after having previously defined larger participants in the consumer debt collection, credit reporting and student loan servicing markets. Elsewhere, the CFPB is...
The CFPB recently convened a small business review panel as per the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 to discuss potential amendments to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, Kelly Thompson Cochran, acting assistant director for regulations at the CFPB, said in a recent blog posting. The amendments made by the Dodd-Frank Act expand the scope of information relating to mortgage applications and loans that must be compiled, maintained and reported under HMDA, including the ages of loan applicants and mortgagors, information relating to the points and fees payable at origination, and the difference between the annual percentage rate associated with the loan and benchmark rates for all loans. Other new inclusions are...
The CFPB intends to conduct a national telephone survey of 1,000 credit card holders and is seeking additional public comment and eventual approval from the Office of Management and Budget, according to a recent notice in the Federal Register. This survey follows an earlier effort last summer along similar lines. Both are...
The Federal Reserve Office of Inspector General has begun an evaluation of the CFPB’s controversial headquarters renovation budget in response to a request from Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-NC, chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, the OIG revealed in its semi-annual report to Congress. “To address this congressional request, our objectives are to evaluate, with respect to the CFPB’s headquarters renovation project, (1) the capital budgeting and approval process, (2) the scope and justification for cost estimates, and (3) the use of competitive procedures,” the OIG said. It expects...
How Not to Run a Website. The “links” section of the website of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee is so outdated, not only does it not have a link to the CFPB, arguably the majority’s favorite regulatory agency, it also has links to the Federal Housing Finance Board and the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. Both of those agencies were subsumed and replaced by the Federal Housing Finance Agency back in 2008. Not surprisingly, there also is no link on the committee’s website to the FHFA’s website. Meanwhile, neither fhfb.gov nor ofheo.gov have...
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s effort to go after corporate executives in connection with its financial-crisis enforcement actions so far has led to 12 cases in which individuals were named as defendants or respondents. Individuals who have been included in CFPB complaints are primarily decision-makers or a party to the consumer transaction. Under the law, they include not only providers of consumer financial products or services, but also those with managerial responsibilities and a “material” participant in the transaction. Individual accountability is...
The odds seem to be increasing that student loan servicers are going to face tougher legislation or regulation – or both – as members of Congress and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau pay more attention to the sector. During a hearing this week of the Senate Banking Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection Subcommittee, Chairman Sherrod Brown, D-OH, drew a comparison between the mortgage market’s collapse and the resulting financial crisis and today’s student loan market – with an emphasis on the role of servicers in both contexts. Last year, Brown wrote...
Before the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau implemented standards for qualified mortgages, few lenders admitted that they were willing to offer non-QMs. However, in recent weeks, a number of lenders have touted their entrance into the sector, providing Ethos Lending with plenty of competition. Some of the non-QM lenders are sticking to relatively safe offerings of interest-only mortgages to well-qualified borrowers, while others see a strong market in non-QMs for borrowers that might not qualify for agency financing. This week, Caliber Home Loans announced...
Lenders that dabble in loans that don’t pass the qualified-mortgage test are going to be very selective about which borrowers they accept, and the loans are most likely to be held in portfolio, according to speakers at a recent industry conference in New York City. “We have used our balance sheet to retain non-QM loans in certain situations,” said Russell Brady, an assistant vice president at Elevations Credit Union. “This can make sense, but you have to do it in a controlled way with all the controls in place,” he said during a panel at the Secondary Market Conference sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association. The QM limit of 43 percent on debt-to-income ratio is...
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