Risk management

Many lenders are still reluctant to give mortgages to borrowers with less-than-pristine credit, yet such loans are far more likely than prime jumbo loans to be bundled into collateral bonds. Sreeni Prabhu of Angel Oak Capital credits banks' behavior and higher interest rates for that reality.

Equifax and TransUnion have stopped selling traditional credit reports, forcing lenders to buy their new, more expensive "trended" data reports that mortgage investors aren't using yet.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is seeking to make it easier for Federal Home Loan Banks to accept certain kinds of collateral for advances.

The Federal Housing Administration should look to private mortgage insurance companies as a model for how to standardize the claim review process.

The first commercial mortgage-backed security to comply with "skin in the game" requirements was extremely well received. Market participants credit the way the large banks sponsoring the deal retained the risk – a strategy unavailable to nonbank lenders.

The U.K. government will redeem 3 billion pounds ($3.9 billion) of bonds backed by mortgages from rescued lender Bradford & Bingley, paving the way for a potential sale of the loans.

The impressive loan growth in the second quarter is surprising in an economy that grew by 1.2% in the second quarter and by only 0.8% in the first quarter.

Arch U.S. MI's acquisition of United Guaranty Corp. will make one of the smallest private mortgage insurers the sector's new market leader. While the move is likely to ease pricing competition among the six remaining players, it's not expected to set off a wave of further consolidation.

Enforcement actions by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau against companies are well-known, but compliance starts with individuals.

Servicers got what they asked for when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau limited the specificity of certain requirements in its final servicing rule. Now they may regret it.

Impending rules allow sponsors of commercial mortgage bonds to satisfy a requirement to keep "skin in the game" of their deals by selling the risk of first loss to a designated third party.

Under pressure from regulators to beef up risk management in commercial real estate lending, banks are using new software tools to improve analysis.

When the limits on two of Bill Johnson's credit cards were lowered from $20,000 to $6,000, his outstanding balances jumped from a perfectly acceptable 20% to a dangerously high 66%.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could need as much as $126 billion in bailout money from taxpayers in a severe economic downturn, according to stress test results released by their regulator.

Fair market value adjustments to mortgage servicing rights will continue to put downward pressure on earnings throughout the rest of 2016, according to Kroll Bond Rating Agency.

Fannie Mae earned $2.9 billion in the second quarter, a step up from its first-quarter earnings, but Chief Executive Timothy Mayopoulos reiterated warnings about future volatility.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's proposal Friday updating its mortgage disclosure rule did not give lenders what they wanted: an ability to correct errors after a loan has closed and a release from liability for technical violations. But the 293-page proposal did provide revisions that will help in compliance and the closing of more loans.

Loan application defect risk continued its downward slide in June, according to First American Financial Corp.

The CFPB updated its "Know Before You Owe" mortgage disclosure rule to provide more clarity to lenders. It has proposed additional tolerance provisions, clarified a partial exemption for housing finance agencies, extended the rule's coverage to all cooperative units, and provided more clarity about privacy and the sharing of information.

Suffolk Bancorp in New York, which recently agreed to sell to People's United Financial, discouraged several suitors from bidding due to concerns about concentrations of commercial real estate loans at those banks. The disclosures highlight the challenges that banks with heavy CRE exposure could face — as buyers or sellers — if they want to do deals.