Servicing

Many active-duty service members are unaware that they are eligible to postpone mortgage payments under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. A group of major financial services companies have pledged to improve communication about this option, according to the Financial Services Roundtable's Tim Pawlenty and John Dalton.

It is clear that the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau has made the mortgage industry a top priority and its supervised entities have had to fall in line with its expansive rules and regulations quickly.

Despite overall foreclosure inventory falling in July, foreclosure starts were up for the third consecutive month, according to a "first look" report from Black Knight Financial Services.

New rules are illuminating a once-shadowy market where servicers can be quick to modify loans and may have few qualms about principal reduction. Discounts or equity make such flexibility possible.

Investors are moving their focus into California's less expensive, more rural areas, according to a California Association of Realtors survey.

Altisource, a mortgage data company in Luxembourg, has opened a new technology campus in Bangalore, India.

Sen. Sherrod Brown may give the country's biggest banks heartburn, but there are signs he's positioning himself as an industry ally ahead of a potential bid to run the Banking Committee.

Mortgage Contracting Services, a property inspection and maintenance company in Plano, Texas, has named Bart Vincent as its chief financial officer.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed to pay $3.15 billion to repurchase residential mortgage-backed securities to resolve federal claims tied to the sale of the bonds to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Goldman Sachs is in the final stages of negotiating $1.1 billion settlement with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, according to a news report Friday.