Risk management

Cybersecurity precautions often focus on preventing a data breach. But what if those precautions aren't enough? Here's a look at steps lenders and servicers can take now to prepare their response in the event of a catastrophic data breach.

With the myriad home price indices available to the mortgage industry, it's difficult to determine which offers the most cost-effective insights about a particular market. Granularity is a key selling point, but not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Two decades of experience with offshoring has shown that shifting operations work from knowledgeable, local workers to people in another country with oftentimes limited training comes with risks — of errors, of misunderstandings and of security lapses.

Though they have a reputation for being precarious, Federal Housing Administration loans are leading the decline in mortgage application defect risk, according to First American Financial Corp.

Strong home sales are boosting originations of Federal Housing Administration loans and opening the door for first-time buyers — developments that could portend the mortgage insurance agency receiving a positive report from auditors this fall.

Artificial intelligence like IBM's Watson may not make bank compliance officers obsolete, but it could mean far fewer of them will be needed in the future, focused on higher-level tasks.

IBM will purchase Promontory Financial Group — a consultancy so influential it has been dubbed the industry's "shadow regulator" — in a move that could extend artificial intelligence into every aspect of banking.

Eight years after high-risk, deceptive lending practices precipitated a near-meltdown of the global economy, we learned that at least 5,300 Wells Fargo employees created 2 million sham accounts that its customers apparently did not want, need or understand.

Now that Fannie Mae requires trended data credit reports for its automated underwriting system, will other secondary market players follow suit? If so, how soon?

Freddie Mac plans to say it will start a pilot program to increase the amount of risk it shares with private mortgage insurers.