Compliance & Regulation

A few years back when it came to minority housing especially in the largest metropolitan areas the risk of stretching lending too thin was often overshadowed by the benefits of higher rates of homeownership.

Bank risk professionals expect delinquencies on most types of consumer loans to rise, balances on credit cards to grow and global concerns will all affect the nation's economic health, according to a FICO survey.

Among the ramifications of paying for the tax cut extension by hiking agency guarantee fees in April could be upward pressure on consumer rates and an improvement in mortgage-backed securities prepayments.

Two more congressmen have been identified as receiving home mortgages through a Countrywide Financial Corp. program that has prompted a Congressional investigation into whether the now defunct lending giant approved loans on favorable terms to win political favor.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has joined efforts to get credit unions exempt from the mortgage recordation tax in New York, ratcheting up the fight against the state levy.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners' capital designation prices for year-end 2011 show a modest average decline that should have a limited but nuanced effect on the securitized non-agency market, a Barclays report suggests.

The first day after his appointment as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Richard Cordray indicated he intends to move aggressively to enforce the agency's expanded authority. He announced the launch of the agency's nonbank supervisory program and stated that the CFPB was already working on significant enforcement actions.

First, some good news: We understand that 350 MetLife Home Loan staffers are about to be made an employment offer. On top of that, other offers are being made to many of MLHL's high-performance loan officers. That's good news for the rank-and-file workers that make up this industry.

Here's a pop quiz: what financial services laws did Congress pass in 2011? Drawing a blank? Don't feel bad. We're hearing crickets, too.

The doors to the first chamber of justice in the federal court system have been shut in the faces of nonborrowing spouses in HECM transactions for the second and last time. Yet, their plight, foreclosures and evictions when their spouses die, remains.