Compliance & Regulation

Loan officers have traditionally been on an island with borrowers, with little management involvement in an originator’s communications with clients. Increasingly, lenders need to think about systems and/or protocols to ensure that such communications are handled properly.

Private mortgage insurers will be required to have master policies that meet new guidelines in place by Oct. 1, according to announcements this week from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Treasury Secretary Lew said he would direct senior staff to bring together MBS investors and issuers to develop guidelines to reassure both sides they won’t be saddled with unfair losses.

The number of home retention actions taken by the largest banks in the first quarter was more than three times the amount of completed foreclosures, short sales and deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure, according to a regulatory report released Thursday.

Unless the industry is content to be a boutique player with a hugely smaller pool of potential borrowers, it had better emulate the Fed and ease on down the road.

The Senate Banking Committee approved Julian Castro, the mayor of San Antonio, on Wednesday to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In light of new regulations, servicers need to take a fresh look at their servicing file tools, processes, policies and procedures.

The regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will conduct a series of town-hall events to convince hundreds of thousands of U.S. borrowers with little or no equity in their homes to refinance.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac suffered "significant financial harm" from "excessively-priced" force-placed insurance, an inspector general's report says, advising their regulator to assess whether to sue banks and insurers for damages.

Wholesale lenders are capping broker compensation at 2.75%, below the CFPB's 3%, adding another "overlay" above and beyond regulatory requirements. Some say borrowers are being shut out as a result.