Investors might be seeing better performance from the credit rating agencies these days. In two new reports, the Securities and Exchange Commission says ratings firms are more compliant and are utilizing information technology to a greater extent, all while remaining competitive, especially some of the smaller ones.

When Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney assumed control of the CFPB as acting director last month, he suggested he would like to see the bureau be less adversarial towards the financial services industry and be more accommodating. Since then, the bureau under Mulvaney’s directorship has pulled in its claws somewhat in a few enforcement actions, at least one of which is mortgage related. In this particular case, back in the spring of 2015, the CFPB sued Ohio-based Nationwide Biweekly Administration, Loan Payment Administration, and their owner, Daniel Lipsky, in federal district court. The regulator had accused them of misrepresenting the interest savings consumers would achieve through a biweekly mortgage payment program and misleading consumers about its cost....

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, who recently raised some questions about the ethics standards that apply to CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney and members of his Office of Management and Budget staff who are doing double duty with both agencies, also has some questions about how certain record-keeping and communication requirements are going to be carried out in the unusual set-up. “Given the dual roles for Mr. Mulvaney and his staff, I am also concerned about record-keeping and other procedures in place to ensure that their work remains separate and subject to appropriate Presidential Records Act, Freedom of Information Act, and other recordkeeping and transparency requirements, and is categorized correctly for these purposes,” Warren said. Her concerns were raised in a ...

Democrat state attorneys general from 16 states and the District of Columbia wrote President Trump earlier this month, vowing to ramp up their enforcement efforts if the bureau backs off under Acting Director Mick Mulvaney, and taking issue with his appointment to the position. “As you know, state attorneys general have express statutory authority to enforce federal consumer protection laws, as well as the consumer protection laws of our respective states,” the AGs said. “We will continue to enforce those laws vigorously regardless of changes to CFPB’s leadership or agenda.” They reminded the president that, as attorneys general, they retain broad authority to investigate and prosecute individuals or companies that deceive, scam or otherwise harm consumers. “If incoming CFPB leadership ...

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 ...

Analysts at S&P Global Ratings said that they do not expect mortgage servicers to see much of an impact from ongoing efforts at deregulation. “The recent resignation of the head of the CFPB – a major tenet of Dodd-Frank – the appointment of a new CFPB acting director, and the Trump administration’s focus on rolling back financial regulations suggest more lenient industry standards could be in the future,” they said in a report recently. However, they don’t foresee any major shift in the industry. “For one, no servicer wants to be associated with following questionable strategies or practices,” the ratings service said. “Furthermore, implementing regulatory initiatives in the past 10 years has been costly for servicers. It would be counterproductive for servicers ...

If the CFPB thought that mandating a 43 percent debt-to-income ratio requirement for a residential mortgage, as seen in its ability-to-repay rule, would lower the odds of a borrower later going into default, it might want to think again. The JPMorgan Chase Institute recently reviewed more than 400,000 mortgage modifications that received payment reduction, principal reduction, or a combination of the two during the financial crisis, and came to the conclusion that payment reduction did a better job bringing relief to struggling homeowners than principal reduction. “Our data showed that for borrowers who were underwater, payment-focused mortgage debt reduction was more effective at slowing default than principal-focused mortgage debt reduction,” the institute said in a report last week. “In addition, ...

A new report from the Office of the Inspector General of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. found that examiners in the agency’s Division of Depositor and Consumer Protection need to do a better and more consistent job of reviewing lenders’ compliance with the CFPB’s ability-to-repay and loan originator compensation rules. The ATR rule directed most mortgage lenders to make a reasonable and good-faith determination, at or before loan consummation, that a consumer would have a reasonable ability to repay a residential mortgage loan according to its terms. Some lenders and loan programs are exempt from this requirement. The LO comp rule placed limits on loan originator compensation and imposed new requirements on loan originators. Both rules took effect Jan. 10, 2014....

It’s Official: Cordray is Running for Governor in Ohio. After months of rumors and speculation, former CFPB Director Richard Cordray recently declared his candidacy for governor in his home state of Ohio. Although he faces at least four rivals for the Democrat nomination, at least one observer in the state considers him the instant favorite.... Mulvaney, Trump and Wells Fargo. Since Mick Mulvaney assumed the directorship of the CFPB, he has imposed a 30-day freeze on all new bureau regulations, and reportedly stopped all new contracting and all new lawsuits, has installed his aides into important positions at the agency, and temporarily froze all payments from the bureau’s civil penalty fund....