Joe Adler

WASHINGTON — The top Republican and Democratic spots on the House Financial Services Committee will remain unchanged in the new Congress.

The Federal Reserve Board and Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday both signed off on an interagency rule requiring securitizers to hold 5% of the credit risk on loans sold to investors.

The draft released by the top Financial Services Committee Democrat would remove adverse information from credit reports and require consumer data furnishers to retain records.

Declines in mortgage-related revenue and trading income helped pull first-quarter earnings down 7.6% from the industry's profit a year earlier, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said.

The congressional stalemate over how to restructure the housing finance system leaves several questions unanswered about other bank regulations currently in the pipeline.

Seven of the largest mortgage servicers say they have trimmed an average of $614 off monthly payments on over 16,000 loans as part of foreclosure prevention required by a regulatory settlement.

The Government Accountability Office urged the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Reserve Board to monitor how servicers were carrying out foreclosure prevention steps in amended consent orders.

A U.S. magistrate judge in North Carolina dealt a blow to government efforts to use the 1980s-era Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act to penalize big banks, but many experts say the decision—which is not binding—may just be a temporary glitch.

Two House Democrats joined Sen. Elizabeth Warren in asking for a meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder about an inspector general's finding that his department's focus on mortgage fraud has not been as strong as advertised.

The Senate passed revised legislation Thursday that would delay increases in flood insurance premiums, following the House's vote advancing the bill last week.

The question triggers a whole array of responses. But after a five-year onslaught of new rules and enforcement, some see a brighter regulatory future for banks.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s history, structure and effectiveness during the financial crisis have helped guide the discussion of housing finance reform, inspiring Senate lawmakers to push an FDIC-like system for the mortgage industry.

Increases in medium- and long-term interest rates still pose risks, but the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s Quarterly Banking Profile revealed that a rate recovery can also have advantages.

Lenders are mostly relieved that regulators broadened an exemption for mortgage securitizers to avoid a 5% risk retention requirement, but some are focusing on the plan’s potential impact on securities backed by leveraged commercial loans.

Stopping a proposed requirement that banks offer "plain-vanilla" credit products was an industry victory in the run-up to Dodd-Frank, but many believe it still survived.

Regulators' plan to unite two separate mortgage standards mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act is deepening the focus on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's ever-expanding role in the mortgage sphere.

Banks can expect changes to federal reporting requirements for mortgage data, according to the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The Federal Home Loan Bank system saw its strongest advances growth in nearly six years in the second quarter as banks began to see depositors exit.

Fannie and Freddie have operated under government control since their operations were seized in 2008.

Anyone thinking lawmakers are close to a consensus on housing finance reform was sorely disappointed by what they heard at a House hearing on July 18.