Compliance & Regulation

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has reached an agreement with Citizens Bank to settle allegations that the bank discriminated against a woman on maternity leave.

The CFPB updated its "Know Before You Owe" mortgage disclosure rule to provide more clarity to lenders. It has proposed additional tolerance provisions, clarified a partial exemption for housing finance agencies, extended the rule's coverage to all cooperative units, and provided more clarity about privacy and the sharing of information.

The Federal Housing Administration is promoting a particular kind of financing for residential energy retrofits that another regulator staunchly opposes. Mortgage lenders and investors have qualms, too, about the impact on their standing in collateral claims.

Ocwen Financial Corp. posted yet another net loss during the second quarter, this time reflecting the impact of legal and settlement costs among other factors.

President Obama called for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be eliminated, but Democratic policymakers attending the convention here appear resigned to the fact that Congress is unable to act on housing finance reform.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a plan Thursday to overhaul the debt collection industry that would limit collection attempts to six per week and require confirmation of a debt before contacting consumers. The plan, however, is not yet directed at banks and credit card companies.

Suffolk Bancorp in New York, which recently agreed to sell to People's United Financial, discouraged several suitors from bidding due to concerns about concentrations of commercial real estate loans at those banks. The disclosures highlight the challenges that banks with heavy CRE exposure could face — as buyers or sellers — if they want to do deals.

As if high default costs haven't been challenging enough for mortgage servicers, a growing number of seriously delinquent loans are Federal Housing Administration products, which require significant upfront investment to resolve.

Citigroup fired a mortgage trader four months ago after internal and external lawyers determined he mismarked his portfolio.

Deutsche Bank is nearing an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to settle a long-running investigation into its mortgage-backed securities business.