Compliance & Regulation

The overseer of the Federal Home Loan Banks is planning changes to membership rules that would keep investment firms and lenders lacking customer deposits out of the U.S. government-chartered system.

Six years after Angelo Mozilo lost control of the largest mortgage lender in the U.S., and days after news that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles plans to sue him, the Countrywide Financial Corp. founder is baffled by a new effort to punish him, proud of past triumphs and incensed by criticism.

Banks with large mortgage operations are struggling with lower profit margins, detrimental fair-value accounting rules and new regulations that add cost. The market is discounting their stocks as a result, but many of these banks say the blanket assessment is unfair.

Housing for America's growing older population that needs to be affordable, physically accessible and close to support services "is in too short supply," according to a joint report from Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies and AARP Foundation.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has charged Evans Bancorp in Hamburg, N.Y., with deliberately failing to provide mortgages in minority neighborhoods in Buffalo.

Redwood Trust and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago are revving up a program to buy and securitize jumbo loans and looking for signs that other FHLBs will participate.

Such a system will not erase past violations, but it can help convince a regulator that a lender is invested in doing business the "right way."

Following one of worst quarters in six years, federally-insured banks and thrifts experienced a rebound in retail mortgage originations in the second quarter.

The increased compliance cost for smaller settlement services providers is not due to the statement, but rather because of new consumer protection rules.

The Justice Department's recent $16.6 billion deal with Bank of America over crisis-era mortgage fraud has raised fresh questions over a perceived lack of transparency in the settlement process.