Compliance & Regulation

For all the talk about legal challenges to the recess appointment of Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, at least one group of consumer lenders has no intention of stepping into the fray.

WASHINGTON—Two senior Federal Reserve officials called on policymakers to take steps quickly to help ease the pain of the housing market to assist ongoing efforts to rescue the U.S. economy.

With financial institutions and mortgage servicers trying to comply with new regulations in order to mitigate their overall risk problems, the law firm Venable has decided to add a veteran finance and capital markets attorney who handles compliance and regulatory matters.

National Mortgage News (December 19) asks, “Can Regulators Prevent the Next Systemic Risk Crisis?” Probably not.

The watch list of servicers supervised by the Federal Reserve and The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is not that long, but the number and types of requirements they need to abide to is and includes independent foreclosure reviews whose application deadline is ticking.

Servicers have restructured nearly half of all second mortgages sitting in their portfolios that are eligible for a HAMP second lien modification program known as 'MP2.'

Park City, Utah - Banks are not alone in criticizing the newly-empowered Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: even some consumer advocates are piling on, raising concerns that the agency will not go far enough in rolling back preemption.

Federal Housing Administration loans once served a broad spectrum of borrowers until the subprime mortgage meltdown came along and pushed lenders to tighten underwriting standards and credit score requirements.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau needs to more clearly interpret regulations such as the loan officer compensation rule, according to executives participating in a roundtable discussion at the National Association of Mortgage Brokers' recent NAMB/West show.

In his eight years on the Senate Banking Committee, Rick Santorum was an infrequent presence at committee hearings, even though his office was located on the same floor of the Dirksen office building as the committee's hearing room.