Compliance & Regulation

The mortgage-bond industry is taking steps toward creating standards meant to help kick-start sales as the government seeks to wean the housing market from its support.

Citigroup Inc.'s $285 million mortgage-securities pact with the Securities and Exchange Commission was approved by a judge whose earlier rejection of the accord was assailed by a federal appeals court.

Lenders need to take the initiative to analyze their Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data before the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does.

The proposed merger of the Home Loan banks in Seattle and Des Moines could spur massive consolidation among their sister banks, but only if the two show it's possible to overcome governance and other logistical challenges that have deterred similar deals.

The senior officer loan survey, which is released by the Fed every three months, asked both large U.S. banks and foreign banks about the effect the new ability-to-pay and qualified mortgage rules were having on approval rates for various types of home purchase loans.

Bond investors are demanding to be paid more to potentially bear losses on mortgages guaranteed by Freddie Mac as risk-sharing notes that were sold earlier by the firm and competitor Fannie Mae slump.

While the national foreclosure inventory has declined for 26 consecutive months to 951,000 mortgages, there remains a significant imbalance between the volume of loans in foreclosure in judicial and nonjudicial foreclosure states.

Acquisitions of large portfolios of single-family rental properties are continuing at a rapid pace, even as investors concentrate on renovating, and filling vacancies in, their existing inventories.

Unlike other regulatory agencies that in many cases looked at form over substance, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will ignore structures altogether when it perceives them to be "sham" transactions.

New York's banking regulator asked Ocwen Financial Corp. for information about an insurance agreement that it says may be designed to funnel fees to an Ocwen affiliate for minimal work.