Compliance & Regulation

Trapped between conflicting requirements that indicate collapse and abolition prospects, the debate over the future status of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is emerging as one of the year’s biggest concerns for insiders and academics.

A while back I read a story about people who have won the lottery twice and three times. Some play the same numbers. Some invested tens of thousands of dollars. One couple won twice in one day. Could you imagine? Imagine winning just once, then having your numbers called the second time, only to have them put back because the person reading the numbers decided the prize should go to someone who had never won before.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said President Obama's decision to expand investigations into home lending and sales of MBS could stop settlement talks with the states over foreclosure practices.

A major hurdle for the mortgage industry in 2011 that may continue to pose a significant risk this year is ineffective quality control. Interthinx identified two defects in the outsourced quality control programs of lenders that affected residential mortgage loan files—missing documentation and inaccurate information.

President Obama's decision to create a new task force to investigate risky lending and securitization practices leading up to the financial crisis could complicate and delay a potential $25 billion settlement involving foreclosure and servicing abuses.

Citigroup recently told its mortgage correspondents that going forward it will only buy "low risk" loans. What's a low risk loan, you ask? Answer: any mortgage that has an almost zero chance of going south.

Many fondly recall their kindergarten years. The teachers had a supernatural power to transform children into students while also starting the learning process of basic life skills. Interestingly, many of these kindergarten lessons are just as important for financial services executives today, even more so for mortgage bankers going through tough times.

The debate over the definition of the qualified residential mortgage slated for use in determining regulatory risk retention standards boils down to two key questions, John Walsh, the acting Comptroller of the Currency, said in a speech at the American Securitization Forum's conference in Las Vegas.

Citigroup Inc. will no longer purchase "medium or high-risk" loans that could result in buyback requests from Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, in the bank's latest effort to improve the quality of mortgages it buys from correspondent lenders, according to an internal memo obtained by American Banker.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will tap small lenders to review its approach to merging the RESPA and TILA mortgage disclosure forms before issuing a proposal for public comment.