40 States Plan to Join Nat'l LO Registration

Forty states are planning to participate in the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System that will track state-licensed mortgage lenders, loan officers, and brokers, and seven states are ready to go onto the system within 60 days of its launch on Jan. 2."These seven states are creating the initial critical mass necessary for a successful launch of the system," said David Bleicken, president of the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators. The states are Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, and Rhode Island. The AARMR and the Conference of State Bank Supervisors have developed the licensing system to track unethical mortgage professionals as they move from state to state and from company to company. At the same time, the House Financial Services Committee is considering a predatory-lending bill (H.R. 3915) that would require federal regulators to create a registry for mortgage originators at federally regulated banks and their subsidiaries. And like state-licensed mortgage lenders, bank loan officers would have to have a "unique identifier."