Compliance & Regulation

A Virginia woman has pleaded guilty to leading a mortgage-fraud ring that victimized hundreds of Hispanic residents in the northern part of the state and caused millions of dollars in losses for lenders.

Nothing touches off an argument more than questions about whether the CFPB will allow any marketing services agreements to continue. Some mortgage lenders say no and are winding down their agreements, others insist regulators can be satisfied, and still others are just plain confused.

There's nothing like a natural disaster to make people realize how important insurance is to the banking industry.

Banks have ramped up foreclosure activity in the past five months, with default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions at their highest levels in two years. It's a positive sign that banks are finally clearing out all the distressed loans still lingering from the housing crisis. Meanwhile, banks remain cautious about new lending, partly because of regulatory actions.

The only thing more ominous than a CFPB investigation is when the FDIC and OCC join in on the action.

Fannie Mae has closed a credit risk-sharing transaction, with an international reinsurance company participating in this type of deal for the first time.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's decisions to make their automated underwriting systems free to use will feed more data to the GSEs, but do little to better serve lenders and borrowers.

The new supplemental performance metric should encourage lenders to serve lower credit score borrowers.

The Federal Housing Administration's Neighborhood Watch website is back online after crashing about three weeks ago.

The Houston housing market still runs the risk of a pullback, based on a range of economic conditions affecting the city, according to Fitch Ratings.