Compliance & Regulation

To hear some former examiners tell it, companies that are hostile during the exam process may get dinged more often than those that show respect and professionalism. Following are tips to ensure bankers do better on their next exam.

Compliance experts have long disagreed about how much, if any, discretion loan officers have in pricing loans to consumers. But a recent auto lending case should bring that debate to a close.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gave $186 million to the National Housing Trust Fund, their first such contributions to a fund designed to provide construction and rehabilitation of rental housing for low-income families.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco is exploring ways to use $40 million it received as part of a private-label securities settlement to support small business development and job creation to help future homebuyers.

Home equity lenders are putting more loans on the books, thanks to increasing property values. But utilization rates are falling, not increasing, and older loans are paying off at a faster clip than lenders can replace them.

QRM clarified the rules of the road for securitizations. Now, participants in the MBS world seeking better margins are looking beyond the safe harbor — to the subprime space.

PHH, which lost $145 million in 2015, has hired Credit Suisse and JPMorgan to help it review all of its options, including capital allocation, to maximize shareholder value.

Lenders can mitigate fair lending violations through employing technology and tools that shed light specifically on their blind spots, one major area of focus recently solidified by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Changes to mortgage disclosure rules implemented in October continue to frustrate community bankers and is just another example of the struggle to stay independent.

The collateral for Agate Bay 2016-2 includes some residential mortgages that failed to comply, at least initially, with "Know Before You Owe" disclosure rules that took effect in October.