Risk management

Costs, process, privacy: Here's a look at some key digital mortgage drivers and obstacles identified by experts at this year's MBA Technology Solutions Conference.

The bank was fined $25 million for what the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said was an inability to provide the discounts to all who were eligible.

The Federal Housing Administration is returning to manual reviews of higher-risk loans it insures because it's finding that a growing share have lower credit scores, higher debt-to-income ratios, or both.

Mortgage brokers need to consider bringing their business into new locations to overcome limitations like competition and a finite number of possible customers.

Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan said that the megabank has worked to address past issues and is equally committed to preventing new problems from arising, despite reports suggesting otherwise.

Mr. Cooper Group took a net loss of $136 million in the fourth quarter after lower rates hurt the mark-to-market value of its larger mortgage servicing rights portfolio harder than its peers.

Policymakers could improve independent mortgage banks' financial stability by giving these companies improved access to liquidity, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is streamlining its Ginnie Mae holdings by combining mortgage-backed securities with similar characteristics into larger pass-through instruments.

Ginnie Mae should not overreact in supervising smaller, more diversified mortgage bankers, but rather scale its approach in line with the concentration of risk that different-sized servicers pose.

MGIC Investment Corp. responded to the broad-based roll out of "black box" pricing engines from the other mortgage insurers by bringing its version to market.

Radian and Essent will make their "black box" mortgage insurance pricing methods live on Jan. 21, leaving MGIC as the only company yet to announce its adoption.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has proposed barring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from using credit scores developed by VantageScore over concern about conflicts of interest with the joint venture of Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac charged lenders slightly lower guarantee fees in 2017 for mortgages with riskier characteristics, according to a Federal Housing Finance Agency report.

Wire fraud is considered a consumer and title agent issue, but the millions of dollars it's diverting from home purchase transactions make it an issue mortgage lenders need to address, too.

Private mortgage insurers are moving away from traditional rate cards in favor of more granular risk-based pricing to make their products more competitive and efficient for lenders.

Fannie Mae completed 10 traditional and front-end credit risk insurance transactions during 2018, sharing $2.6 billion of risk, including $192 million in its final deal of the year.

Beazer Homes USA is working to encourage competition among its approved lenders in order to help control upward pressure on home prices and lending rates that could slow sales.

The unique approach Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are each taking with their credit-risk transfer products is quickly becoming a key point of differentiation that's rekindling competition between the government-sponsored enterprises.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac transferred a substantial amount of credit risk to the private sector through both single-family and multifamily market transactions in the first half of the year, with activity expected to rise in 2019, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

When the mortgage giant will be released from government control is anyone's guess, but the company's third-quarter report shows signs of an easier transition.