Finance

The Rhode Island bank endured a sharp decline in fee income from home loans, which had spiked earlier in the pandemic. But CEO Bruce Van Saun says the company is well positioned as the refinancing boom fades and the home purchase market becomes more important.

The proposed acquisition comes just days after Better.com announced plans to buy London-based online loan broker Trussle Lab.

The new deal will remove manual bid taping and automate secondary loan sales directly on the Encompass platform.

The bank's noninterest expenses fell by 8% in the second quarter — a sign that CEO Charlie Scharf is making progress in reining in spending that had been soaring in recent years amid heightened regulatory scrutiny. He ultimately hopes to reduce gross expenditures by $8 billion annually.

Those handling loan modifications anticipate a growing secondary market for loans in forbearance as they budget cautiously for additional alterations of regulations down the road.

Consumer price spikes, which in June surged the most since 2008, will likely be a temporary feature of an economy that’s quickly recovering from the pandemic, said Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Mary Daly.

The bank's second quarter production revenue was down 32% from the first quarter, even as volume increased 4%.

Single-family rental houses and townhomes underpin the securitization, with a feature to transfer or obtain a release of any property that meets conditions.

The Mortgage Bankers Association is advocating for more funding for the agency due to its elevated securitization activity, and counterparty risk linked to a lingering concentration of loans in forbearance.

Officials responded to a more elevated outlook for prices by penciling in two interest-rate hikes for 2023, according to the median of their projections, while seven of 18 wanted to raise interest rates next year.