Seth Frotman, the former student loan ombudsman who dramatically quit the CFPB in August, has launched his own initiative to help solve the student debt crisis.

The CFPB last week released a fair lending report covering the agency’s activity in 2017. The report generally summarized the bureau’s past fair lending efforts and laid out its priorities.

Performance of ABS backed by credit-card receivables remained strong in the third quarter of 2018 despite rising consumer-debt levels, according to an update from Moody’s Investors Service.

The spread between interest rates for qualified mortgages and similar non-QMs has narrowed somewhat this year. The lower premium placed on non-QMs suggests that lenders are getting more comfortable with the liability associated with the loans. The findings were detailed recently by two economists at the Federal Reserve who had access to loan-level data from Optimal Blue. The data comprised loan applications and mortgage locks from January 2013 through September 2018 ...

CFPB advisory committee meets by conference call; the bureau issues a financial report for FY2018 that details employee numbers, funding transfer requests and enforcement actions; and other federal agencies propose a rule to raise the appraisal exemption for rural properties.

The implementation of the qualified-mortgage standard has reduced the incidence of lending to consumers with high debt-to-income ratios among nonconforming mortgage applications, and significantly increased the cost of credit, according to the Federal Reserve.

Lenders no longer need to start complying with the CFPB’s payday-lending rule on Aug. 19, 2019, a judge ruled. In an unexpected development, Judge Lee Yeakel of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas Austin Division last week reversed his prior orders that denied the request to delay the compliance date of the payday rule. The case was filed by two industry groups – Community Financial Services Association of America and Consumer Service Alliance of Texas ...

A union representing CFPB employees recently asked the agency to halt the reorganization of the fair lending office, alleging the bureau did not bargain with the union in good faith. The reorganization was announced in January, but the CFPB is still negotiating the matter with the National Treasury Employees Union. The NTEU in late October filed a mass grievance against the CFPB over its handling of racially tinged blogs posted by Eric Blankenstein

The CFPB’s recent complaint snapshot report hinted at a possible focus of the upcoming debt collection rules, said attorneys. Credit reporting, debt collection, and mortgage continued to be the three categories that drew the most consumer complaints, according to the report. Among public gripes regarding debt collection practices, some 40 percent said companies “attempt to collect debt not owed.” It is a significant trend, said attorneys, because Acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney ...

Former CFPB Director Loses in the Ohio Governor’s Race. Former CFPB Director Richard Cordray lost in the Ohio governor’s race last week. Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine led a GOP sweep of statewide nonjudicial offices. In his campaign, Cordray boasted of his record reining in Wall Street during his tenure at the CFPB. He worked as the CFPB director from its inception until 2017, when he quit to run for governor of the Buckeye State [Includes four briefs] ...