Compliance & Regulation

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.

Federal regulators must levy fines against residential servicers under their purview to show there are real consequences for their "severe misconduct," according to Federal Reserve governor Sarah Bloom Raskin.

New York Fed President William Dudley stressed the need to take forceful action to aid the real estate market, which has been a drag on the economy, but stopped short of offering a silver bullet solution, in a speech before the New Jersey Bankers Association Friday.

After months of waiting as their counterparts began examining banks, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's nonbank supervision team began the enormous task Thursday of overseeing the rest of the consumer financial sector.

On Dec. 22, 2011, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the sentences of Terrance "Terry" and Sonya "Cheri" Tucker, a Thousand Oaks couple who pleaded guilty to bank fraud in a real estate scheme that cheated homebuyers and investors.

Advocates for Consumer Affairs, a compliance and risk management firm that audits mortgage loans nationwide, said it plans to concentrate their efforts to make sure homeowners receive loans that are enforceable from financial institutions.

Many community banks are looking to residential mortgage lending as one of the ways to increase their profit margins in the era of Dodd-Frank, notes a compliance expert at a banking industry technology provider.