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,” ...

Four financial regulatory agencies recently recommended that appraisers get temporary practice permits and waivers when moving to another state in order to help alleviate the shortage of appraisers, especially in rural areas. The Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the National Credit Union Administration are concerned that the limited number of state-certified and licensed appraisers is slowing down appraisal turnaround times. They suggest that when an appraiser moves to another state, that the new state regulator recognize the certification or license issued by another state on a temporary basis for federally related transactions. The banking regulators also recommend...

There’s plenty of talk in mortgage technology circles of e-mortgages, re-imagining the loan origination process and digitizing back-office operations, but what about the regulatory, supervisory and examination front? During a recent interview with Inside Mortgage Trends, Sharif Mahdavian, vice president of national sales at ComplianceEase, a leading industry vendor, revealed that regulators are increasingly moving to an “e-examination” phase to augment their current level of ...

The CFPB and the Department of Justice have separately filed motions opposing a proposal from a handful of state attorneys general to take $15.14 million of unused settlement funds from the bureau’s $50 million enforcement action against Sprint and instead redirect it to two other purposes. The AGs of Connecticut, Indiana, Kansas and Vermont recently proposed taking $14.0 million of the unused money from the U.S. Treasury, which could receive it under the terms of the redress plan, and instead giving it to the National Association of Attorneys General to establish a National Attorneys General Training and Research Institute Center for Consumer Protection. The AGs also want to repurpose the remaining unspent amount, $1.14 million, and give it to a ...

Ocwen Financial Corp. is facing more trouble than just its struggle with the CFPB and a number of state regulators. The mortgage lender/servicer also faces the increasing likelihood of some ratings downgrades as well as pending class-action lawsuits. Fitch Ratings recently revised Ocwen’s U.S. residential mortgage-backed securities servicer ratings outlook to negative. “The revision of the rating outlook for the servicer ratings is based on uncertainty surrounding the financial and operational impact of new regulatory actions taken by the CFPB and the multi-state actions following the findings of the Multi-State Mortgage Committee,” Fitch said. The negative rating outlook also takes into consideration Ocwen’s financial condition. Fitch placed the company’s and its corporate parent’s long-term issuer default rating on “rating watch ...

State regulators filed a complaint last week seeking to prevent the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency from creating a national charter for nonbank financial technology companies. The charter would preempt state laws, eliminating a “patchwork” of compliance issues for marketplace lenders and other fintech companies. “If the OCC is allowed to proceed with the creation of a special-purpose nonbank charter, it will set a dangerous precedent that any federal agency can ...

Can the financially troubled and regulator-challenged Ocwen Financial survive? It’s not an unfair question given its most recent travails and this week’s news that it struck a $425.0 million transaction “in principle” to sell some of the cash flows on $117 billion in mostly non-agency servicing rights to New Residential Investment Corp. As the weekend approached, analysts that follow the company were speculating that Ocwen is going through what looks like a controlled liquidation, selling off assets – mostly the cash flow stream on its servicing portfolio – and buying time while it fights regulatory sanctions in 31 states. The company is...

Ocwen Financial’s travails continued to worsen this week after rating agencies announced adverse ratings actions amid the servicer’s mounting regulatory and legal problems. On April 24, Moody’s Investors Service placed Ocwen’s servicer assessment on review for a possible downgrade. On April 25, Fitch Ratings revised its previous rosy affirmation of the company’s primary servicer rating and stable outlook to negative. Both firms said the ratings actions were due to the increased regulatory scrutiny on Ocwen’s servicing operations, which could lead to hefty penalties that could pose a threat to the company’s financial stability. On April 20, a consortium of state mortgage regulators filed...

Last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and many state regulators took coordinated actions against Ocwen Financial, alleging a number of servicing problems. Ocwen, the largest subprime servicer, disputes the allegations. The CFPB lawsuit, along with lawsuits and cease-and-desist orders from at least 24 state regulators, could be catastrophic for Ocwen. Most of the cease-and-desist orders prevent the company from originating mortgages until it proves it can appropriately ...

The CFPB was not alone in its crackdown last week on Ocwen Financial over its alleged mortgage servicing failures and violations. The same day the bureau announced its action, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and Office of Financial Regulation Commissioner Drew Breakspear filed a federal civil consumer protection lawsuit against Ocwen and subsidiaries, Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC, and Ocwen Mortgage Servicing, Inc., for what they called “mortgage servicing misconduct.” According to the complaint, Ocwen harmed citizens of the Sunshine State by filing illegal foreclosures, mishandling loan modifications, misapplying mortgage payments, failing to pay insurance premiums from escrow and collecting excessive fees. Ocwen services roughly 125,000 home mortgages in the state. The complaint, filed in federal court in West Palm Beach, ...