Compliance & Regulation

The CEO of the nation's independent mortgage company is urging federal and state regulators to extend an August 1 deadline for loan officer licensing approvals due to processing delays at state agencies.

Countrywide Financial Corp. gave 'Friends of Angelo' loans with preferential terms to roughly three dozen employees of Fannie Mae, according to newly released documents.

An explicit government guarantee and insurance wrap on mortgage-backed securities are among a gathering consensus about Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac reform that is emerging in one of the two main political camps debating the issue.

A new government report says delinquencies on permanent HAMP loan modifications that are six months old are much lower than servicers' proprietary loan modification programs.

The financial reform bill protects consumers from the home-lending abuses that led to thousands of foreclosures in Silicon Valley by establishing the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. The provisions establishing the Bureau grant the Bureau rule making authority and provide the Bureau with supervisory authority over nondepository-covered persons. This includes any person that engages in offering or providing a consumer financial product or service and any affiliate of such person if the affiliate acts as a service provider to such person.

Housing and residential finance trade groups expect to launch a major lobbying effort with the goal of getting the Senate to take up and pass a Federal Housing Administration reform bill this year.

Now that congress has passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform bill, attention has quickly turned to the implementation date of the regulatory provisions, which impact every mortgage securitizer, lender, servicer and loan broker.Not only are questions popping up about effective dates, but how long it will take to get the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau up and running. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., told reporters that Congress needs to focus "relentlessly" on the regulatory process. "I would urge my colleagues beginning probably no later than September to hold hearings on the status of the regulations."

An explicit government guarantee and insurance wrap on mortgage-backed securities are among a gathering consensus about Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac reform that is emerging in one of the two main political camps debating the issue.

National banks and federally chartered thrifts conducting their mortgage lending operations through subsidiaries may have to restructure their operations due to the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform bill.

The Federal Housing Administration is seeking public comment on mortgage underwriting changes it plans to implement soon to reduce defaults and losses to the federal mortgage insurance fund.