Compliance & Regulation

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is giving the 17 or so participants in its “small business” review panel five additional days to offer comments on the agency’s mortgage banking compensation proposals.

As head of the Mortgage Bankers Association, David H. Stevens spent the last year warning that excessive and ill-considered regulation could drag down the mortgage market. As the new head of SunTrust Mortgage, he'll have to face that regulation head-on.

Monetary policymakers should recognize that the housing bust will have a lasting effect on the U.S. economy and should adjust their expectations to relatively slow GDP growth.

Multiplying federal and state regulation that has triggered the issuance of new rules and requirements further down the chain at the local level is mounting pressure on mortgage banks in search of new ways to conduct mortgage loan reviews and ensure they stay in compliance.

On July 21, 2010, President Obama signed a bill that literally overhauled every corner of the financial industry—Dodd-Frank became an immediate game changer. Among other it contains an obscure provision that may fail to catch people's attention.

Property valuation compliance requirements are challenging lenders and servicers as much as home price fluctuations.

Regulatory pressures have given the mortgage industry headaches along with a renewed motivation to create more efficient solutions.

As Fannie Mae's July 1 deadline approaches, lenders and servicers must meet the GSE's requirement to satisfy homeowners association claims in order to preserve their first lien position.

When veteran regulator Tim Long announced his retirement from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency last year, the agency quickly replaced him with David Wilson, its deputy comptroller for credit risk. To do so, however, officials had to work around the strict ethics rules governing federal employees because Wilson, who would oversee supervision policy for all national banks, is married to a high-level executive at Bank of America.

An effort is gaining momentum to require banks to lend more in low-income neighborhoods in order to gain municipal business.