Compliance & Regulation

Once upon a time there was a rug merchant who saw that his most beautiful carpet had a large bump in its center. He stepped on the bump to flatten it out—and succeeded. But the bump reappeared in a new spot not far away.

Though Democrats scored a big political victory in passing regulatory reform, many are already paying for it as the financial services industry directs more of its contributions toward Republicans and moderates who tried to pare back the revamp.

The Federal Housing Administration Tuesday morning officially launched a new refinancing program to aid underwater borrowers, allowing lenders to write a new government-backed mortgage where up to 10% of the original loan amount will be forgiven.

The speculation over whether Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren will be nominated as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau refuses to die.

As a fallback position, the National Association of Home Builders is willing to accept limits on incentives builders can offer buyers that use their mortgage and title companies -- but only to keep HUD from taking more restrictive actions.

Changes in the Federal Housing Administration program, today's conservative underwriting and recent evidence of the wholesale channel's profitability could make it and the third-party origination business in general more attractive to some players—as it has for Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp., Sun Prairie, Wis.

To fully end "too-big-to-fail" we need to make our financial system safer for failure. We cannot rely on the hope of perfect foresight—whether by regulators, or by managers of firms, private sector gatekeepers, or other market participants. Financial activity involves risk, and no one will be able to identify all risks or prevent all future crises.

Regulatory changes continue to largely drive automation for those on the production side, especially when it comes to documents, according to executives at DocMagic Inc., Carson, Calif., which does business as Document Systems Inc.

Texas attorney general Greg Abbott has charged Coppell-based American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc., the nation's largest independent subprime servicer, with allegedly using illegal debt collection tactics and improperly misleading struggling homeowners.

A cease-and-desist order has been issued by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance to The Pinnacle Division LLC, formerly known as MMS Holdings LLC, and doing business as The Sly Team and www.theslyteam.com, located in Atlanta.