The American Bankers Association recently detailed a handful of major concerns it continues to have with the approach federal regulators take toward fair lending. The first such concern it listed in a new white paper sent to the Treasury Department is the expanded use of the disparate-impact concept. “Federal agencies responsible for ensuring compliance with national fair lending laws have in the last few years aggressively applied a controversial legal theory, disparate impact, to brand banks with violations of fair lending rules,” said the ABA. Under the disparate-impact theory, regulators rely heavily, sometimes solely, on statistical sketches to justify lawsuits or other enforcement actions, it added. “In doing so, since June 2015 they have largely ignored the analytical framework established ...

The information the CFPB collects and reports on consumer complaints offers lenders a tremendous resource in terms of abiding by the letter and the spirit of the bureau’s numerous rules, according to some top compliance professionals. “The CFPB’s annual report on complaints really is an incredible source of information,” said Barbara Boccia, senior director at Wolters Kluwer, during a presentation early last week at the American Bankers Association’s annual regulatory compliance conference in Orlando. “First, it really is a lot of information. Also, the way they structure the information that they receive is instructive,” she said. “You really want to make sure you are structuring your [complaint] information the same way, in terms of what they are looking at – for ...

One of the top concerns among compliance professionals is the seeming inevitable conflict that the CFPB’s amendments to its mortgage servicing rules will have with various state laws – in particular, the possibility that compliance with one may put the servicer out of compliance with the other. That was one of the key takeaways from a break-out session early last week at the American Bankers Association’s annual regulatory compliance conference in Orlando. “One issue that comes up fairly frequently has to do with what a servicer should do when there is a conflict between state and federal law. We’ve seen this come up especially when it comes to the various early intervention notices that servicers have to send to delinquent borrowers,” ...

Industry compliance officers, trade group representatives and legal experts at the American Bankers Association’s regulatory compliance conference, held in Orlando last week, expressed mixed sentiments about whether the CFPB ought to delay the effective date of the new requirements it is ushering in under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. They were responding to the suggestion of such a delay made by the Treasury Department in its recent report as per President Trump’s Executive Order 13772. “Obviously, a delay has to be for at least a year because the nature of HMDA is such that you can’t delay for six months,” Rodrigo Alba, the ABA’s senior vice president and senior regulatory counsel for mortgage finance, told an audience during a working ...

More than 68 percent of mortgage defects reported in 2016 involved TRID-related and/or loan package documentation issues, according to the latest mortgage quality control industry trends report from ACES Risk Management (ARMCO). “In 2016, the entire lending industry was impacted by the enhanced regulatory oversight of the CFPB as the long-awaited implementation of TRID was fully realized,” the report noted. “Many lenders spent the better part of the first quarter addressing the multitude of mistakes associated with TRID.” In some instances, this produced loans that could not be sold on the secondary market. “A wave of corrective action followed, and soon the sheer amount of resources directed at solving these issues became overwhelming for many lenders,” ARMCO added. The top...

Third-party oversight is becoming more of a focus of regulators these days, according to some top compliance professionals, and one of the most important emerging themes is an increasing regulatory emphasis on staff expertise. “This is something that [all the regulators] are thinking about,” Krista Shonk, vice president and senior regulatory counsel at the American Bankers Association, said during a presentation early last week at the ABA’s annual regulatory compliance conference in Orlando. Staff expertise includes things such as the ability to perform proper due diligence analysis and contract management and oversight.But personnel also need to avoid any attempts to transfer their institution’s inherent responsibility for compliance with laws and regulations. On the other hand, lenders should not put ...

There are three important trends in the consumer complaint space, each bearing important lessons for mortgage lenders, regardless of size or structure, according to top compliance experts. Speaking to an audience at the American Bankers Association’s annual regulatory compliance conference in Orlando earlier this week, Carol Hunley, deputy chief compliance officer at Ally Financial Services, detailed each of them and their significance for lender compliance. First, the lending environment is...

The most challenging aspect of complying with the pending amendments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s mortgage servicing rule will be implementing the successors-in-interest provisions, according to industry experts. Most of the revisions to the rule, issued last year by the CFPB, take effect Oct. 19, 2017. But the successor-in-interest requirements kick in April 19, 2018. Addressing an audience at the 2017 American Bankers Association regulatory compliance conference in Orlando this week, compliance professionals broke...

An industry trade group is requesting that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau exclude reverse mortgages from the income-reporting requirement of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.The National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association is seeking an exemption similar to the HMDA exemptions for rate spread; Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act status; origination charges; discount points; lender credits; total loan costs; points and fees; prepayment penalty term; and balloon payments. However, should the CFPB require income reporting on reverse mortgages, the NRMLA would want further guidance and clarification. Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loans make up over 99 percent of the reverse mortgage market today, and have not dropped below 85 percent since 1993, according to the group. NRMLA’s request is part of a broader comment on ...

The Department of Veterans Affairs is seeking clearance for two information-collection forms that are crucial to a veteran’s ability to obtain or cure a VA-guaranteed mortgage loan. The Office of Management and Budget is currently reviewing the forms. The VA also has published notices in the June 1 Federal Register seeking public comment on the proposed revised forms. Comments for both notices are due July 3, 2017. The first form relates to information a veteran must provide to be exempted from paying a funding fee. Borrowers are required to pay a funding fee to obtain a loan with a VA guaranty, unless the borrower is a disabled veteran receiving VA compensation for his or her service-connected disability. Loans made to unmarried surviving spouses of veterans who have died in service or from a service-related disability also are exempted from payment of the funding fee (regardless of whether the ...