Compliance & Regulation

As part of a larger regulatory relief effort, regulators have raised the dollar-amount threshold for commercial real estate transactions that require a formal appraisal.

Acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Mick Mulvaney proposed dramatic curbs to his agency's power in a report Monday, including a recommendation that all CFPB rules must be approved by Congress.

Momentum to overhaul the mortgage finance system had been slipping, and with Democrats divided over the Senate's banking relief bill there's virtually no chance more bipartisan deals can be worked out.

The annual progress report on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac conservatorships reiterated that a new credit score model will likely not be operational until after the implementation of a new Single Security Initiative.

Heads of a large real estate investment company with offices in Alaska and California have agreed to pay $3 million in fines for what a federal agency says was a scheme to "bilk" hundreds of investors out of millions of dollars.

The investigation targeted 36 residential mortgage-backed securities deals involving $31 billion worth of loans, more than half of which defaulted, according to the Justice Department.

A majority of midsize and large banks complain that red tape is mounting and that they are passing on higher regulatory costs to customers and have less flexibility in designing products, according to a new survey by the RMA.

Lenders should not get so desperate chasing volume by originating lower credit non-qualified mortgage products that they are inviting the next regulatory crackdown, said David Stevens, the Mortgage Bankers Association's CEO.

The new request for information is the 10^th in the series that is part of acting Director Mick Mulvaney’s “call for evidence” to assess the CFPB’s overall effectiveness.

One purpose of the Senate bill was for small banks to rein in skyrocketing costs, but some bankers question whether the changes will save them money, and adapting to the reforms may even increase spending.