Compliance & Regulation

The Obama administration, which has proposed levying a tax on the largest banks as a way to pay for a broad mortgage refinancing plan, is now in talks with members of Congress about finding an alternative source of funding.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is shutting the door on states issuing transitional licenses to bank loan officers who seek work at an independent nonbank lender or brokerage shop.

The Obama administration, which has proposed levying a tax on the largest banks as a way to pay for a broad mortgage refinancing plan, is now in talks with members of Congress about finding an alternative source of funding, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said Thursday.

Last week, the CFPB issued a compliance bulletin confirming that it would follow the disparate impact theory in advancing claims of discriminatory lending practices. The importance of the disparate impact theory is that it does not require a showing of intentional discrimination. Rather, it simply requires the government to show that a lender’s policies and/or practices resulted in a discriminatory outcome-regardless of the intent.

After the conclusion of a successful pilot program, the Internal Revenue Service is planning to roll out the production version of its electronic signature capabilities for Form 4506-T by the end of 2012, according to officials who detailed the plans during the MBA tech show in Phoenix this week.

Changes made late last year to the Obama administration's flagship mortgage refinance program have boosted profits at the nation's largest banks at the expense of homeowners and U.S. taxpayers, according to mortgage experts testifying at a Senate hearing on Wednesday

Getting licensed to be a mortgage loan officer is simple – or so some readers have told us. But we’ve also heard stories about failure rates in some states approaching 40%.

For every positive step taken by lenders and the law enforcement community to stop people from scamming the system, it seems that fraudsters are one step ahead, experts conceded at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s National Fraud Issues Conference in Phoenix this week.

Changes made to the Obama administration's flagship mortgage refinance program, HARP, have boosted profits at the nation's largest banks at the expense of homeowners and U.S. taxpayers, according to mortgage experts testifying at a Senate hearing this week.

Fannie Mae this week established new timelines to expedite residential short sales as required by its regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency.