Secondary

Hint: businesses should be focused on data strategy and security, from the individual up to the enterprise level.

PHH Corp. said its loan closing dollar volume will decrease this year, after Bank of America's Merrill Lynch announced plans to withdraw business from the firm.

An Altisource Residential Corp. affiliate is taking management's side in the real estate investment trust’s fight with activist investors.

Congress should consider giving direct authority over nonbank mortgage servicers to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, according to a report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office. The report said there should be "parity" among financial regulators in the oversight of regulated entities and third parties they do business with.

Goldman Sachs Group will pay $5.1 billion to settle a U.S. probe into its handling of mortgage-backed securities involving allegations that loans weren't properly vetted before being sold to investors as high-quality bonds.

New lender disclosure requirements aren't just disrupting the market for private-label mortgage bonds; they could also impact the market for bonds that transfer credit risk of mortgages insured by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the private sector.

Annaly Capital Management, the largest real estate investment trust that buys mortgage debt, agreed to purchase Hatteras Financial Corp. for $1.5 billion as the company expands its property business.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments Tuesday about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's structure, in a case that has national implications. Even though a ruling isn't expected until the end of the year, legal experts say there are four major legal issues involved.

Commercial and multifamily originators closed $504 billion in loans last year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's experiments with selling credit risk to investors are a critical element of new plan to merge the two entities and move them out of conservatorship, but what form so-called credit risk transfers take could make a big difference.