Tag Archives: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

The National Association of Mortgage Brokers has joined the coalition of professional entities petitioning the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for greater clarification of the Qualified Mortgage rules within the Dodd-Frank Act. Comprised of various trade associations and housing interest groups with ties to the mortgage industry, the coalition recently submitted a letter to CFPB director Richard Cordray. As it stands now, QM legislation could be especially damaging to low- to moderate-income buyers.

Lawmakers seated on the House Financial Services Committee recently unveiled a new online resource for members of the public to track burdens created by the Dodd-Frank Act. The so-called Dodd-Frank Burden Tracker includes a spreadsheet with rules by agency, page length, date of proposal, and more. The committee ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô comprised by conservative Republicans ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô billed the tracker as a means to transparency for some 185 of 400 rules, which currently take up more than 5,000 pages, according to information from a statement.

The House Financial Services Committee signed off on largely symbolic legislation Wednesday that would repeal bailout funds under the Dodd-Frank Act, eliminate force-placed insurance requirements, and rope the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau into future congressional appropriations processes. Clearing the legislation by a party-line vote, committee members billed it as a way to slash $35 billion from the national deficit. The bill also proposed doing away with bailout mechanisms under Dodd-Frank.

If new guidance from the consumer bureau means anything, lenders could face action in instances that allegedly involve discriminatory lending practices for homeowners ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô even if practices seem fair at face value. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a bulletin Wednesday that reasserts disparate impact, a legal doctrine tucked into the Equal Credit Opportunity Act by policymakers that lays blame at the feet of lenders for overt and disparate acts of discrimination.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a bulletin Friday reminding financial institutions that they may be held accountable for violations under contracted service providers. The agency said that banks and nonbank entities need to supervise their third-party vendors with due diligence, consistently request and review their internal controls and training materials, and establish clear expectations about compliance. The CFPB also called on financial institutions to adopt the internal controls necessary to supervise vendors.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau steamed ahead with proposals for new rules Tuesday that would require mortgage servicers to notify homeowners about changes to their interest rates and insurance policies. The CFPB said it would publish proposals for the rules this summer and seek to finalize them by January next year. Under the new rules, servicers would need to tally up mortgage payments for homeowners every month, issue notifications about interest-rate changes for many adjustable-rate mortgages, and stay transparent about so-called force-placed insurance policies.

Lawmakers seated on the Senate Banking Committee slated five nominees to head up regulatory agencies for full-chamber votes Friday. Committee Chairman Tim Johnson led the voice vote that cleared nominees for boards responsible for the Federal Reserve System, FDIC, and Troubled Asset Relief Program, among others. The nominees set for votes include Jerome Powell and Jeremy Stein for governorships with the Fed; Jeremiah Norton, for a board role with the FDIC; Richard Berner, for directorship of the Office of Financial Research; and Christy Romero, for service as TARP├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós next special inspector general.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau threw its weight into the courtroom recently by filing a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the tenth circuit. The issue at stake: Whether homeowners can cancel their loans within a three-year period stipulated under the Truth-in-Lending Act ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô and whether a plaintiff need sue within the same timeframe before the right of rescission expires. The case in Denver involves one Jean Rosenfield, who sued for an injunction against servicer HSBC in 2009 when an earlier notice of rescission went unnoticed by the servicer and lender.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray told a gathering of the nation's editors and journalists Friday that the agency needs their help to make consumers more aware of predatory lending hurdles. He highlighted efforts by the CFPB to increase transparency in the markets, underscored the role undertaken by lenders in the crisis, and played up the need for more regulation for servicers. The address by Cordray is the latest in a round of public appearances by the CFPB director, newly appointed by President Barack Obama in January.

On Capitol Hill, the American Guild of Appraisers is petitioning the Federal Reserve Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to overturn a recently adopted rule that stands in opposition to regulations contained in the Dodd-Frank Act. The AGA wrote the organization's plea based on the assertion that the Fed's new rule poses a threat to the viability of professional appraisal practice and undermines the legitimacy of real estate appraisals. The legislation in question was put in place last year by the Fed.