Compliance & Regulation

Lenders are no more willing now to make a home loan backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac than they were six years ago, according to a Federal Reserve Board survey released Monday.

Compliance within the financial services industry impacts the entire organization and is key to the bottom line for firms currently operating in the mortgage space. Comprehensive compliance risk management strategies are required to meet compliance obligations and also protect customers, employees and shareholders.

About 9,000 title industry insiders participated in the Ernst survey and 40% of respondents felt that fraud in real estate transactions had increased within the last year.

Industry efforts to pass legislation that would exclude originator compensation from the statutory points and fees test in the qualified mortgage rule are off to a slow start on Capitol Hill.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency hired Denise Dunckel as a senior associate director for the office of congressional affairs and communications.

A surge in mortgage lending drove strong profits for banks of all sizes in the first quarter, with some banks attributing the improvement to new regulations.

Ally Financial, in a new public filing, finally admits that it is weighing bankruptcy protection for its struggling residential mortgage division which is facing potential additional losses of up to $4 billion.

For a year now the government owned Ally Financial has kept mum on the idea of throwing ResCap into bankruptcy protection but the self imposed gag order came off late Friday night, squirreled away in the folds of a new 148-page SEC filing.

The National Credit Union Administration is preparing to ease the reins on the use of financial derivatives and allow more credit unions to deal in a variety of instruments that would help them hedge interest rate risk, including interest rate swaps, caps, floors, options and collars.

It's no secret that there are signs of life in the 'flow' servicing market, but will these green shoots of a revival turn brown?