Tag Archives: Bank of America

Residents of Connecticut will receive $190 million from the historic $25-billion settlement with five servicers, according to the office of the state attorney general.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished by end of day Friday at a clip just below 13,000 points, lifting stocks and shares for all but one of the four major financial institutions. The jump reportedly marks the highest for the Dow Jones since 2008, just before the worst of the financial crisis, as investors got bullish on another round of bailout votes for debt-saddled Greece. The index closed on a .35-percent hike Friday, up 45.79 points, giving Wells Fargo a 2.37-percent boost to wrap up stocks at $31.09 per share.

The mortgage subsidiary for Citigroup settled claims that it misrepresented government-backed loans Wednesday by agreeing to pay $158.3 million in damages. The payout means that CitiMortgage acknowledges that it qualified nearly 30,000 bad loans for government insurance, a move that bilked the Federal Housing Administration out of millions of dollars as more than 30 percent of the mortgages went into default. The settlement resolves a suit filed by the civil fraud unit at the office of Manhattan U.S. attorney.

More than a year's worth of rumors, negotiations, and reversals concluded Thursday with a $26-billion mega-settlement between government officials and the nation├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós five largest mortgage servicers. The size and scope of the settlement makes it the largest endeavor by state and federal officials in U.S. history. Federal officials and 49 state attorneys general closed a deal with Ally Financial Corp., Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo that supplies homeowners in distress with new relief and establishes new servicing standards.

A still-brittle economic recovery picked up steam in January as the private sector added 243,000 jobs, driving unemployment figures to lows not seen in three years. The Labor Department said that the national unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent, also signaling a fifth straight month for declines in the number of jobless Americans. Construction added 21,000 jobs from December, with gains for nonresidential construction and specialty trade contractors. Financial services lost some 5,000 jobs from last month by comparison.

Citigroup joined a host of other financial institutions Wednesday by declaring that it plans to exit the mortgage brokerage business. A spokesperson said that the bank decided to depart from the brokerage channel in order to focus on the rest of the business, particularly mortgage origination in the correspondent and retail lending sectors. The move follows similar departures from around the mortgage origination and servicing sectors by Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, MetLife, and Morgan Stanley last fall.

Earlier Tuesday the FDIC went forward with a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register that calls for annual stress tests to determine capital adequacy for banks. The notice built on the Basel Accords, which the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision revisited with help from a consortium of central bankers over 2010 and 2011. Basel III is the latest by BCBS to require stress tests for systemically important financial institutions, which include Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and several other U.S. lenders.

Stocks and shares for the nation├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós four largest banks slid back Friday on news that ratings agency Standard & Poor's slashed credit ratings for several debt-saddled euro zone countries, including France, Italy, and Spain. A 0.4-percent dip led the Dow Jones Industrial Average to end the day at 12,422 points, a 48.96 loss from the day before. The S&P 500 went south in a 0.5-percent tizzy, losing 6.41 points to close at 1,298. S&P ignited an investor selloff in the markets earlier Friday by announcing credit changes for 16 European countries. S&P slashed U.S. sovereign credit last fall.

A surge in suits involving mortgage-backed securities propelled litigation cases for mortgage servicers to 218 over the third quarter last year, according to a recent index. Mortgage-backed securities litigation rose by 36 cases over the third quarter, up from 26 seen from the last quarter and just 12 in the third quarter 2010. Foreclosure-related suits also went up from 67 in the second quarter to 90 in the third quarter, followed shortly by litigation from investors, which leapt from 50 to 82 over the same time frame.

As the new version of the Home Affordable Refinance Program takes effect, lenders large and small are joining the government's effort to boost assistance to underwater homeowners. HARP 2.0, which went into implementation on December 1, has already garnered support from the country's four major financial institutions and companies like United Wholesale Mortgage.