Risk management

Regulators finalized a rule Monday requiring banks to escrow flood insurance premiums and fees for loans on real estate located in a flood zone.

Many lenders may not have been ready for the CFPB's new mortgage disclosure rule if it took effect on Aug. 1 as planned. Now a slip-up by the agency itself has given lenders a two-month reprieve.

Black and Hispanic home-loan applicants in New York are more than twice as likely to be denied as white applicants, a study by StreetEasy found.

Pressure from community groups forced Valley National Bancorp to strengthen its commitment to lend in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods in order to win approval for a Florida acquisition. Other banks, too, are now placing CRA efforts front-and-center as they aim to sell deals to the public and their regulators.

Barclays is ending trading in $700 billion of U.S. mortgage bonds that were issued before the financial crisis.

The legal challenge to the government's bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is not necessarily a slam-dunk victory, despite an apparent favorable legal ruling in a similar case, analysts at KBW said.

New regulations for credit rating agencies that took effect this week are expected to make mortgage and other asset-backed securities more transparent by requiring broader disclosure of certain due diligence reports.

Almost seven years after the financial crisis, bond investors are rediscovering their appetite for new debt tied to the housing market.

Freddie Mac is planning its fifth risk-sharing transaction of the year.

Private mortgage insurers see deeper coverage of GSE loans as a way to expand business, while lenders hope it could lead to a reduction to guarantee fees.

Alternative data used to score "credit invisibles" may do more harm than good. That's because in areas like employment and insurance, no credit score is often better than a bad one

A bipartisan group of Senate Banking Committee members is urging the Federal Housing Finance Agency to make risk-sharing a higher priority for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Two recent settlements show how far the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is willing to go to pursue lenders it believes skirted the loan officer compensation rules.

The California Reinvestment Coalition has called for a federal investigation into the foreclosure policies of OneWest Bank in minority neighborhoods.

How interested banks, REITs and other investors will be in replacing the Federal Reserve as buyers of mortgage-backed securities insured by government-related entities depends on a wide range of regulatory and economic factors.

Securities issuers are increasingly worried that risk-retention requirements could hinder efforts to broaden the types of loans securitized through the private-label market as implementation for the new regulation nears.

The title insurance industry in the United States looked a whole lot better in 2014, according to a recent study by Fitch Ratings.

Ocwen Financial's shares had fallen nearly 7% Friday afternoon, to under $10 apiece, a day after Standard & Poor's Ratings Services put the company's servicer ratings on CreditWatch negative.

Bank of America will close a back-office facility in a Sacramento, Calif., suburb and outsource some of the office's employees.

In the struggle between operational compliance and cost control, advanced analytics and technology can help lenders find an efficient middle ground.