Data security

Maria Vullo is stepping down as head of New York's banking and insurance regulator after three years in which she created a national model for cybersecurity regulations at banks and fought back against federal attempts to chip away at payday-lending rules.

Plaid, which moves consumer data between financial institutions and fintechs, could expand overseas as part of a broad growth plan, according to a venture investor.

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee concluded that last year’s massive data breach at Equifax was fully preventable, but stopped short of recommending new laws aimed at averting future hacks. Democrats called the final report a “missed opportunity.”

Wire fraud is considered a consumer and title agent issue, but the millions of dollars it's diverting from home purchase transactions make it an issue mortgage lenders need to address, too.

Fintech adoption among real estate and title agents is accelerating, though their optimism on the housing market has tanked, according to First American Financial Corp.

A man from Hialeah, Fla., will face sentencing in November after pleading guilty to conspiracy in an $8 million mortgage and tax-refund scheme.

Wire fraud committed through business email compromise schemes has emerged as a serious threat to mortgage and real estate transactions. Defending against these scams requires a comprehensive strategy that includes technology, training and nonstop vigilance.

Fraudsters can track a home sale from the moment it goes on the market until the deal closes, make these transactions a ripe target for business email compromise scams that seek to intercept wire transfers and steal from legitimate participants in a deal.

Post-crisis measures made it harder for rogue borrowers and employees to commit fraud. Now, a new threat has emerged from scammers posing as title agents, real estate professionals and more.

Capital One's dispute with Plaid raised questions about the ability of banks and aggregators to work together. But the end of that fight, and Capital One's deal with Finicity, show common ground can be reached — eventually.

Wire and other payments fraud affected a record number of businesses last year, and the FBI is warning in particular about real estate scams.

Credit reporting firms with significant operations in New York will face new cybersecurity and registration requirements to stave off concerns related to a breach of Equifax's systems last year.

Startup Block66 is using blockchain to create a mortgage audit trail for fraud prevention purposes and also plans to enable trading of securities lenders can use to increase their liquidity.

Ginnie Mae is looking to start a pilot program to securitize digital mortgages as early as 2019, but issuers would not be able to commingle loans using traditional paper files in those deals.

Federal law enforcement authorities have arrested 74 people in this country and abroad, accusing them of participating in a wire fraud scam whose victims included real estate attorneys and settlement service providers.

Genworth Financial's mortgage insurance business, which had slipped in market share, has more certainty about its future prospects after a federal government committee approved the holding company's acquisition by China Oceanwide.

Since taking office in November of last year, acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Mick Mulvaney's actions have sparked outrage from his critics seemingly at every turn, including several times just last week.

WEI Mortgage discovered a data breach from an email phishing scam last fall that may have exposed loan package information and identifying data such as Social Security numbers.

The agency's acting chief said hundreds of data breaches justified a halt on collecting information from firms, but experts question that logic.

The news of the data breach cast a shadow over relatively strong first-quarter earnings for the Atlanta bank.