Mortgages

Banks with large mortgage operations are struggling with lower profit margins, detrimental fair-value accounting rules and new regulations that add cost. The market is discounting their stocks as a result, but many of these banks say the blanket assessment is unfair.

Kofax, a maker of imaging and business process management software, is acquiring Softpro, a provider of fraud prevention and electronic signature software based in Boeblingen, Germany, for $34.7 million in cash.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has charged Evans Bancorp in Hamburg, N.Y., with deliberately failing to provide mortgages in minority neighborhoods in Buffalo.

Redwood Trust and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago are revving up a program to buy and securitize jumbo loans and looking for signs that other FHLBs will participate.

For the average consumer, bundling purchases is a proven approach to improving value while reducing cost.

Such a system will not erase past violations, but it can help convince a regulator that a lender is invested in doing business the "right way."

Lennar Homes and RBC Bank have formalized their unofficial agreement to help provide mortgages to Canadians buying homes in Southwest Florida.

The Bank of Napa has established a relief fund for victims of the recent California earthquake, which was centered in the bank's local area.

Redfin's July 2014 Housing Market Tracker report finds flat residential real estate price growth in all 35 markets included in the report for the first time in five months.

The days when banks would give away toasters when customers opened an account may be long gone, but Russia's Sberbank has a purrfect gift for new mortgage borrowers.

Following one of worst quarters in six years, federally-insured banks and thrifts experienced a rebound in retail mortgage originations in the second quarter.

The increased compliance cost for smaller settlement services providers is not due to the statement, but rather because of new consumer protection rules.

The Justice Department's recent $16.6 billion deal with Bank of America over crisis-era mortgage fraud has raised fresh questions over a perceived lack of transparency in the settlement process.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded two servicer ratings for Ocwen Loan Servicing, reflecting additional scrutiny by regulators and concerns about the nonbank mortgage servicer's ability to ensure timely payments to bondholders.

Here is a checklist of six items you can do to be ready for the upcoming Mortgage Bankers Association annual convention or any other trade show.

Bank of America has taken a significant reputational hit as a result of its 2008 acquisition of Countrywide Financial. Could it have mitigated some of the damage with a different branding strategy?

Prices of securitized commercial mortgage loans shrank slightly in July, according to DebtX.

HSBC Holdings Plc and Nomura Holdings Inc. lost a bid to block claims by a U.S. regulator the banks say were brought too late, clearing the way for a trial of HSBC over questionable mortgage practices.

It only took 23 years as an originator to come up with this simple idea.

A bulletin from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau outlining new policies for mortgage servicing transfers has the industry on alert for another possible round of rulemaking coming down the pike.