A boom in ABS backed by unsecured consumer loans requires closer scrutiny, according to analysts at Fitch Ratings. Marketplace lenders have boosted the issuance of such ABS in recent years, though the rating service warned that deal performance is difficult to predict. “Many firms in this space have legitimate value propositions and apparent technological advantages,” Fitch said. “However, they have yet to prove their underwriting merit.” Since September 2013, at least 31 ABS totaling $4.60 billion backed by consumer loans from marketplace lenders have been issued...
Fitch Ratings was the most active rating service in the sluggish non-agency MBS market through the first half of 2016, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking. Standard & Poor’s was the top rating agency in the more active non-mortgage ABS market. Fitch rated just seven non-agency MBS issued during the first six months of the year, which totaled $4.74 billion in volume. While that equaled 30.9 percent of total non-agency MBS issuance for the period, many deals were private placements without ratings. Fitch’s share of rated issuance was 55.4 percent. DBRS ranked...[Includes two data tables]
Wells Fargo Chairman and CEO John Stumpf will be on what is expected to be a very hot seat before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee tomorrow when he is expected to explain what went wrong at his institution that enabled employees to open more than two million deposit and credit card accounts that may not have been authorized by consumers. CFPB Director Richard Cordray is also scheduled to testify, as is Comptroller of the Currency Tom Curry and ...
First it was Corinthian Colleges, then ITT Educational Services. Now, Bridgepoint Education Inc. has been taken to task by the CFPB over alleged misconduct. Last week, the bureau brought a $31.5 million enforcement action against the for-profit post-secondary education company based in San Diego, accusing it of deceiving students into taking out private student loans that cost more than advertised....
Even Under Trump, Would the CFPB Be Invincible? If businessman Donald Trump wins the White House in November, the CFPB would be in the Republican’s crosshairs for sure. But the bureau’s recent consumer fraud case against Wells Fargo for opening up roughly two million deposit and credit card accounts without authorization has caused such outrage nationwide that it may very well give the controversial regulator a “shield” of sorts. At least that’s what we’ve been…
Bank and thrift holdings of non-agency ABS fell slightly during the second quarter, but the industry is not backing away from the consumer credit space. Depositories prefer to hold these assets in unsecuritized form on their balance sheets. A new Inside MBS & ABS analysis of call-report data shows that banks and thrifts held $130.98 billion of non-mortgage ABS at the end of June. That was down 0.7 percent from March and represented the 10th consecutive quarterly decline since the end of 2013, when the industry’s ABS holdings hit their all-time peak. According to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the supply of non-mortgage ABS debt outstanding actually rose...[Includes two data tables]
Investors in auto loan ABS may need to buckle up. Both prime and subprime auto loan ABS have weakened month-over-month and year-over-year, according to S&P Global Ratings. “Collateral performance in the U.S. prime auto loan ABS sector was weaker in July, with net losses and 60-plus-day delinquencies increasing month-over-month, while recovery rates decreased,” the S&P analysts said. “Collateral performance for the subprime sector deteriorated...
The CFPB recently brought a $32.25 million enforcement action against First National Bank of Omaha, alleging deceptive marketing and illegal billing of add-on credit card products that it claimed harmed hundreds of thousands of borrowers. According to the CFPB, from 2002 until at least 2012, First National Bank of Omaha offered add-on debt cancellation products with its credit card, including products dubbed “Secure Credit” and “Payment Protection.” The bureau said the bank promoted these products as providing a monthly payment to the cardholder’s account in the event of certain hardships, such as involuntary unemployment, hospitalization or disability. Cardholders were charged a monthly fee for the products. First National Bank of Omaha also offered credit monitoring products, including “Privacy Guard” and ...
The CFPB recently brought a $4 million enforcement action against Wells Fargo, alleging the bank engaged in illegal private student loan servicing practices that increased costs and unfairly penalized certain student loan borrowers. “Wells Fargo hit borrowers with illegal fees and deprived others of critical information needed to effectively manage their student loan accounts,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. The bureau said it identified breakdowns throughout Wells Fargo’s servicing process, such as failing to provide important payment information to consumers, charging consumers illegal fees, and failing to update inaccurate credit report information. One of the CFPB’s charges against the company was that it processed payments in a way that maximized fees for many consumers. “Specifically, if a borrower made a ...
The Federal Communications Commission has issued a baffling final rule restricting the way servicers can collect on or service student loans, mortgages and other debts owed to the federal government.Specifically, the rule implements a key provision in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 amending the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to exclude robocalls from the TCPA consent requirement if they are made solely to collect a debt owed to or guaranteed by the federal government.The TCPA generally requires a caller to obtain “prior express consent” from the call recipient before making a telemarketing call or an auto-dial call to the recipient’s landline or cell phone.However, the mortgage industry raised concerns that TCPA’s consent requirement could create potential liability for important servicing calls that could help homeowners save their homes, which prompted Congress to pass the Budget Act amendment. Last month, the FCC specifically excluded the federal government from the TCPA’s consumer protections by ruling that the government is not a “person” subject to the TCPA. Here is where the FCC rule gets confusing. commission is authorized to adopt rules to “restrict or limit the number and duration” of any wireless calls to collect debt owed to the federal government.”