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 ...

Consumer complaints overall continued their downward trajectory in the fourth quarter, but it was a different story when it came to areas such as student loans and credit reports, both of which shot upwards on an annual basis. Overall, total gripes from end users of the financial system fell 24.1 percent year over year and 23.1 percent from the third quarter of 2017 to the fourth. But criticisms about student loans surged 109.9 percent on an annual basis, despite a drop of 30.1 percent from 3Q17 to 4Q17. Credit reports were similarly slammed, with a 99.8 percent leap in complaints year over year, a 32.2 percent fall off quarter to quarter notwithstanding. On the other hand [includes exclusive data chart] ...

Both GSEs are expected to need a draw from the U.S. Treasury, thanks to the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that will reduce the corporate tax rate and result in $15.3 billion in one-time charges for the pair. With the tax rate being reduced from 35 percent to 21 percent, the GSEs now have to measure their net deferred tax assets using the new rate. According to recent Securities and Exchange Commission filings, Fannie Mae expects to take a one-time charge of $10.0 billion and Freddie Mac is bracing for a $5.3 billion charge.

Some observers think that resolving the long-running conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac this year is closer than it has ever been, but they also say political differences present a number of challenges. There has been an uptick in momentum the past few months and the recent deal between the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Treasury that allows the GSEs to retain $3 billion in capital is an optimistic sign of progress to many. Moreover, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is working on a draft of a GSE reform bill, and the House Financial Services Committee has held a handful of hearings on GSE reform issues in the fourth quarter in preparation for drafting legislation.

Mortgage lenders pressing to get compliant with the new data collection and reporting require-ments under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act got a bit of a reprieve, as the Consumer Financial Pro-tection Bureau and the other prudential regulators announced they would take “good-faith efforts” ap-proach to enforcement.

The Department of Housing and Urban Affairs plans to act on two new rules in 2018 relating to allowable fees and charges on VA loans as well as the type of loans that are “qualified mortgages.”

The Community Home Lenders Association last week asked CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney to delay implementing the bureau’s pending new data collection and reporting requirements under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, which are slated to kick in Jan. 1, 2018. The trade group’s more general concerns are, first, that HMDA requirements should be balanced and tailored to the objectives. “The Trump administration has pledged to address overly burdensome regulations which have a negative impact on the ability of private sector finance providers to make credit available to consumers,” said the CHLA, which represents mostly small, independent mortgage bankers. The industry organization reminded Mulvaney it has issued reports and written letters this year detailing how excessive regulations and the threat of ...

The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee recently passed a bipartisan measure that will provide some noteworthy relief from a handful of CFPB regulations, especially for small and regional lenders. Under S. 2155, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act, certain mortgages originated and retained in portfolio by banks and credit unions with less than $10 billion in total assets would be deemed qualified mortgages under the bureau’s ability-to-repay rule. The act also would provide regulatory relief under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act for small depository institutions that have originated less than 500 closed-end mortgage loans or less than 500 open-end lines of credit in each of the two preceding calendar years. The Government Accountability Office would ...

Speaking during a recent public appearance in Washington, DC, Mark Calabria, chief economist in the Executive Office of the Vice President, discussed the Trump administration’s priorities when it comes to regulatory reform, and the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rule was one of the items on the list. “Looking at the mortgage finance system as a whole is critical, as is reviewing the substantive rule-makings that came out of the Dodd-Frank Act,” said Calabria, former director of financial regulation studies at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, DC, and a former Capitol Hill staffer involved in drafting the framework for the conservatorships of government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. “We really did expand the regulatory framework with things like the qualified mortgage ...