Kate Berry has covered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for American Banker since 2016. She joined the publication in 2006 covering mortgage lending and the financial crisis. Berry also has covered big banks including Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo. She has won five awards from the Society of American Business Writers and Editors, and has worked at several news organizations including the Orange County Register, the Los Angeles Business Journal and the Associated Press. Berry began her career as a clerk at the New York Times.
-
Large banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, credited a pickup in mortgage banking returns for helping boost their quarterly revenue.
April 27 -
The past is coming back to haunt former Fannie Mae chief executive James A. Johnson.
April 24 -
Raj Date, the deputy director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said the agency wants to avoid creating "disincentives" for mortgage lenders and banks as part of the qualified mortgage rule.
April 23 -
Edward DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said he is "deeply concerned" about underwater borrowers, but added that forbearance plans and short sales already serve as forms of principal reduction without saddling taxpayers with further losses.
April 20 -
Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry this week urged eligible borrowers to sign up for the OCC's foreclosure-review process, and suggested that homeowners who didn't like the results would still be able to sue their mortgage servicers later.
April 20 -
New York Community Bancorp on Wednesday posted a 76% first-quarter jump in mortgage banking revenue from a year earlier, as the Westbury, N.Y., bank saw robust growth in multi-family and commercial real estate loans.
April 19 -
A Federal Reserve rule has sown widespread confusion about the way lenders pay housing appraisers, creating turmoil in an industry already burdened by expensive middlemen, falling home prices and diminished ranks.
April 18 -
A federal judge rejected an attempt by the Securities and Exchange Commission to compel Wells Fargo & Co. to comply with an administrative subpoena, ordering the agency and the bank to meet to resolve their dispute over documents related to the agency's investigation of nearly $60 billion of residential mortgage-backed securities.
March 30 -
The largest banks are charging relatively high interest rates to borrowers that qualify for a government refinance program, according to analysts, who say that the trend bodes well for mortgage profits in the second quarter.
March 29 -
Wells Fargo & Co., the nation's largest residential lender, is trying a new twist on long-controversial downpayment assistance programs, which give money to prospective borrowers who otherwise could not afford to buy homes.
March 27 -
Mortgage bondholders are threatening legal action over the $25 billion national mortgage settlement, which will give the five largest servicers credits for principal writedowns that the bondholders may take.
March 20 -
As cities and towns across the country struggle to pay bills and prevent troubled properties from giving rise to blighted neighborhoods, they're turning by the hundreds to a new tactic.
March 16 -
The $25 billion national mortgage settlement essentially allows the five largest servicers to police themselves - which has made many consumer advocates surprisingly happy.
March 16 -
U.S. Bancorp has moved all its home appraisals to an in-house unit overseen by a senior risk officer, breaking from the way most banks handle valuations of residential properties.
March 13 -
Protestors interrupted Bank of America Corp.'s chief executive Brian Moynihan during an investor presentation Thursday, shouting "Bust Up Bank of America!" and, curiously, "It's International Women's Day."
March 12 -
As cities and towns across the country struggle to pay bills and prevent troubled properties from giving rise to blighted neighborhoods, they're turning by the hundreds to a new tactic.
March 6 -
PennyMac's Stanford L. Kurland has taken his share of criticism for helping to start the financial crisis. Now he is singing the praises of the government's latest attempt to fix it.
March 5 -
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau received about 2,300 complaints about mortgage servicers in December, when it began accepting complaints online, and the pace of borrower complaints has been steady ever since, according to a senior agency official.
February 24 -
Depositories unloading real-estate-owned properties face some tough choices, such as whether to auction off homes or sell them to investors, and whether to fix them up first. But whatever they decide, the real challenge is to avoid dragging down property values from their already-depressed 25% to 30% discounts.
February 24 -
The acting commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration this week blasted news reports that claim Bank of America Corp. was essentially bailing out the agency's mortgage insurance fund.
February 23
