Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase reached a financial settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Maryland attorney general last week over allegations related to illegal mortgage kickbacks involving some of their loan officers and Genuine Title, a title company based inMaryland that went out of business last spring. The two government agencies are seeking civil penalties of $24 million from Wells Fargo and $600,000 from JPMorgan Chase. They also want $10.8 million from Wells and $300,000 from JPMorgan Chase in redress for consumers whose loans were involved in the marketing arrangement at issue. The CFPB and the Maryland AG also took action...

Roughly $1.5 billion of the $2 billion in mortgages Altisource Residential held at Sept. 30 are in some stage of foreclosure.

Two other servicing packages hit the market the past few days, including a seasoned $276 million Ginnie Mae portfolio from Interactive Mortgage Advisors.

Stonegate Mortgage saw its share price fall to a new 52-week low of $9.76 Thursday morning on no major news.

“There’s real business out there,” said Brian Chappelle, a mortgage industry consultant.

The top five lenders in the industry accounted for 33.8 percent of total production last year, down from a combined 40.8 percent market share back in 2013.

More commonly, servicer event of default clauses are tied to the servicer’s financial condition...

In other words, the bureau is asserting the primacy of its regulatory authority over the legality of certain private contracts.

Demand for VA products is being sparked by declining interest rates and the fact that these government-backed loans do not require any downpayments.

It’s unclear what exactly will be addressed in these new standards, though capital requirements for nonbank servicers is said to be a key part of it.