Compliance & Regulation

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., will announce today that he will not seek re-election next year, capping a 32-year career in Congress, a spokesman said Monday.

Government officials are likely to lessen large banks' liabilities over how they handled delinquent Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgages as part of a settlement with the largest mortgage servicers, according to people briefed on the negotiations.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to provide early warning of possible enforcement actions. Subjects under investigation to be given opportunity to respond to CFPB concerns, On Nov. 7, CFPB outlined plans to provide advance notice of potential enforcement actions to individuals and firms under investigation.

The government-sponsored enterprises' Uniform Mortgage Data Program has been marred with delays and setbacks since the earliest steps began at Fannie Mae two-and-a-half years ago with the precursor to the Uniform Collateral Data Portal, the technology platform that will accept full electronic appraisal reports in a new XML-formatted data file.

Only one county in the country–Fairfield, Conn.–will have a higher conforming loan limit in 2012. The ceiling in the other 3,200-plus counties will remain unchanged.

A New York court has said that an appraisal-related suit involving First American Corp. and its former eAppraiseIT LLC unit, now a part of CoreLogic, can move forward, ruling against a jurisdictional challenge.

All of the 12 national banks under regulatory orders to correct their servicing and foreclosure procedures are making progress in that regard, according to an interim report released Tuesday by the Comptroller of the Currency.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has reached a settlement with Wells Investment Securities Inc., where the latter will pay a $300,000 fine for using misleading marketing materials in the sale of Wells Timberland REIT Inc., a non-traded real estate investment trust.

A whistleblower lawsuit filed by two mortgage brokers has been unsealed in Federal District Court in Atlanta claiming that 13 banks and mortgage companies have cheated veterans out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Bank of America Corp.'s board has been told the company could face a public enforcement action if banking regulators aren't satisfied with recent steps taken to strengthen the bank, according to a report by Dow Jones.