Tag Archives: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued Wednesday an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on guidelines related to the debt collection industry. "For decades, many consumers have reported various unacceptable practices in the debt collection industry. Today's action will allow us to hear from the public as we consider what rules are needed," said Richard Cordray, director of the CFPB. The bureau also announced it will begin adding consumer complaints about debt collections to its public database.

Today's resilient capital market has the capacity to adapt readily to the pending ability-to-repay and qualified mortgage (QM) rules set to take effect January 10, 2014, according to a white paper CoreLogic released Friday. In its analysis, CoreLogic offers general support for the rules and suggests the industry will continue to prosper--albeit with more caution than in the years leading up to the housing crisis. "Making sure a borrower has the ability to repay is good business," the company said.

Five federal agencies issued Tuesday a statement assuring creditors that they do not run the risk of being found in violation of fair lending laws should they choose to only originate qualified mortgages (QM) as defined earlier in the year. With creditors having to consider a balance of secondary market opportunities, capital requirements, and credit and liability risk, regulators say they expect there will be a need for most businesses to fine-tune their products in response--something they should be used to.

With Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Acting Director Edward DeMarco considering lowering loan limits for the GSEs, congressional and industry leaders are speaking out against such a plan, saying it poses a threat of hindering the housing recovery. In the last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association, National Association of Federal Credit Unions, and 66 House representatives have all written to DeMarco, decrying the potential move and even questioning its legality.

LoanLogics, a Pennsylvania-based company specializing in loan quality management and performance analytics, announced new enhancements to its LoanDecisions pricing and eligibility platform.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has ordered two mortgage banks to pay civil penalties for violating the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) with allegedly inaccurate for applications from 2011. According to a release from the agency, Mortgage Master (a nonbank headquartered in Walpole, Massachusetts), and Washington Federal (a Seattle-based bank), failed HMDA reviews when it was determined "that their compliance systems were inadequate and that they had severely compromised mortgage lending data."

The Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI) decreased 0.7 percent in September to 110.7. "Credit availability tightened last month as more lenders removed program offerings with loan terms greater than 30 years and/or interest-only features, similar to the trend we observed last month," said Mike Fratantoni, MBA's VP of research and economics. "[W]e believe this reflects lenders' implementation of the Ability to Repay/Qualified Mortgage regulation which comes fully into effect in January."

Fiserv, Inc., a provider of technology solutions for the financial services industry, says lenders and servicers seeking help to maintain compliance should look no further than the LoanComplete suite.

Originators and servicers are going to have to step up their documentation procedures as regulatory guidelines dovetail, financial services firm PwC says in a new white paper. "The age-old question asks: if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? A modern version to that question might be: if a lender in fact determines a borrower's ability to repay, or originates a Qualified Mortgage (QM), but cannot evidence it, has the lender complied with the Ability-to-Pay (ATR) or QM standards?" PwC asks.

A new tool released Wednesday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) provides heat maps and illustrative graphs that detail local mortgage market trends.