Opinion

CFPB to Bank LOs: Drop Dead

Late this week the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau poked its thumb in the eye of residential loan officers originating mortgages for depositories. The young agency, more or less, shut the door on states issuing what are called "transitional" licenses to bank LOs who leave and then seek jobs working for nonbank firms — either originators or brokerages. "The bureau recognizes this can create impediments to job changes and is committed to working with the states, industry" and others to minimize the impediments, the CFPB said. Still, it went ahead with its decision. As the weekend approached, bank LOs everywhere likely were pondering their futures. (Reporting by NMN's Brian Collins.) Stay tuned…

I would guess former NAMB chief Marc Savitt is about to weigh in on this development. Mark now runs the National Association of Independent Housing Professionals which represents brokers, appraisers and others…

Remember that Wells Fargo "exclusionary" list of correspondents it won't do business with? One source close to the matter said a large wholesaler was just added to the list. We know the identity of the firm and will report more on the situation early next week…

THIS JUST IN: Whole Loan Capital has formed a group of originators to pool together their origination capabilities and create close to $5 billion of high quality mortgage servicing rights. It would appear the "flow" market may indeed be back…

As for MSR flow prices, lenders are sick and tired of the lousy SRPs the aggregators are paying. Two-times the servicing fee? Really…

Also: Bank of America is on the verge of unloading a $20 billion MSR package. Supposedly, Ocwen was bidding…

In other M&A news, Nationstar is still in talks with ResCap/GMAC. The clock is ticking on that missed bond payment…

Over the past few months B of A has 6,000 to work on problem servicing and loan mods, or so I heard one bank official say during its 1Q earnings conference call…

ROMENY HATES HUD UPDATE: Our website was burning up this past week with readers taking in our WWH blurb on GOP hopeful Mitt Romney wanting to (possibly) kill HUD. Presumably, he wants to stick a knife in FHA and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, too. If that happens, Redwood Trust might be the only game in town…

Former Dime Savings chief (remember Dime?) Richard Parsons this past week said the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act separating banks from investment banks and insurers made the financial services business more complicated. (Parsons also ran Time Warner for a while and just ended 16 years as a Citigroup director.) Speaking at a Rockefeller Foundation event in Washington he said, "To some extent what we saw in the 2007, 2008 crash was the result of the throwing off of Glass-Steagall." What did the dismantling of Glass-Steagall allow? Answer: It allowed megabanks like Citigroup to own subprime lenders, and then take those very same loans and issued MBS. Countrywide had its own broker/dealer, too…

WASHINGTON NEWS: Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee have made it clear they believe the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is already too big and needs to be cut down to size. The bureau is projected to spend $356.4 million in the current (2012) fiscal year. The committee voted on party lines this week to reduce CFPB's budget to $200 million in FY 2013.

THIS COLUMN'S FOR SALE: Want the rest of the industry to know about your HARP 2.0 program changes and LLPAs? Need to reach correspondents and brokers? Send an email to Steven.Schloss@SourceMedia.com.

LOAN OFFICERS, YES YOU CAN STILL BRAG A LITTLE, BUT TIME IS RUNNING OUT: NMN and its sister publication Origination News, the most widely read news magazine in the broker/correspondent sector, has launched its annual loan officer survey. Eventually, we'll publish features and rankings on the nation's top LOs. To participate in our survey visit http://originationnews.com/losurvey.

DATA STUFF: If you need contact names and emails on the top players in mortgage banking subscribe to NMN's Mortgagestats.com product. For more info drop an email to Deartra.Todd@SourceMedia.com and ask about our site license rates. If you want exclusive stats on the nation's top 100 lenders and servicers ask about the Quarterly Data Report. Free samples available, the operative word being "sample."

I'm on Twitter, discussing mortgage matters, bad decisions made by hedge funds, and other stuff.

LAST WORD: Can the Caps pull it out of the fire? GC is hoping, as are all DC hockey fans.

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