Compliance & Regulation

A federal court in Newark has issued an order effectively requiring CUMIS Insurance Society to cover millions of dollars of losses suffered by Sperry Associates Federal Credit Union in the massive mortgage fraud committed by U.S. Mortgage and its CU National Mortgage unit.

There is definitely no shortage of "knowns," and lenders who seek to understand even more can become acquainted with resources such as the 805-page Supervision and Examination Manual that was recently published by the CFPB. However, this is where hubris becomes dangerous, because unknowns remain.

A mortgage rescue scheme conspirator has been sentenced to five years in prison for his role in a scam that affected at least 1,800 distressed homeowners in Phoenix.

The Treasury Department has agreed to pay $171 million that it withheld from Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase after the two servicers fixed problems in how they handled government-backed residential loan modifications.

The National Association of Home Builders is exploring several ideas to replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the secondary market, including one option that would give the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks the green light to securitize safe and sound conventional mortgages.

The types of entities facing violations of the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control's prohibited list has been growing recently to include not only mortgage-related players such as banks and commercial real estate entities, but also a homeowner association, according to an Attus Technologies Inc. executive.

Negative equity and home price volatility have turned home price protection into a desirable yet unattainable option since protecting local housing markets from future devaluation is a challenge few insurers are willing to take on.

Here's a taste of a story appearing in the Monday edition of National Mortgage News: Brian Simon, CEO of Caliber Funding, in a recent interview predicted that his company could grow originations by threefold or fourfold in 2012.

Last week's blog focused on clarifying the rules for producing branch managers. This week, we will discuss some creative compensation strategies. My preferred way of compensating producing branch managers is to set them up on a traditional profit and loss model, but treat the "profit" as a fixed amount of basis points per loan amount. In other words, all expenses remain deductible.

The speed at which fraudsters attack and alter their tactics is changing the game in card fraud prevention, making real-time monitoring much more essential.