Big banks have become much less reliant on principal-reduction loan modifications in the past year, according to an Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of data from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The shift does not appear to be due to improvements in loan performance because delinquency rates were essentially unchanged. Some 5.0 percent of the nearly 70,000 loan modifications completed in the second quarter of 2014 by eight servicers tracked by the OCC included principal reduction ...