Tag Archives: GAO

Click through to learn what was discussed at the Senate Banking Committee’s hearing on the impact of financial data privacy and unregulated credit scores on consumers.

The GAO reported on Tuesday that a survey of the CFPB's nonexecutive employees revealed concerns over fair treatment in the workplace.

Nonbank servicers are now servicing nearly a quarter of all residential mortgage loans in the country. What does the Government Accountability Office recommend should be done to increase government oversight of nonbank servicers?

While reverse mortgages can be a boon to seniors as they head into retirement, a new report from the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) says trends show trouble in the market that may cost taxpayers billions of dollars. According to a 2012 MetLife survey, two-thirds of borrowers are now using reverse mortgages to pay down debt. Pamela Villarreal, a senior fellow at NCPA, expects the "troubling trend will increase as more baby boomers enter retirement."

The GAO revealed it considers the agency to be a "high risk" program "due to [its] greater vulnerability to fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement or the need for transformation."

The last few weeks have seen a deluge of new rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and other regulatory agencies, but a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) says the reform process is still coming along slowly. As of the end of 2012, GAO estimates regulators have issued rules for approximately 48 percent of the Dodd-Frank provisions that call for them. Most of the effective deadlines for those rules have not yet been reached, the agency says.

From 2008 through 2011, 414 banks failed across the nation, resulting in estimated costs to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) of about $42.8 billion, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GOA). When examining the cause of bank failures from 2008 through 2011, GOA found banks with less than $1 billion in assets were especially vulnerable to commercial real estate losses. GOA also found instances of "nontraditional, riskier funding sources" in many failed banks.

The New Year began without any bank failures, but one new law will task the FDIC inspector general with checking the books to see if the agency helped exacerbate failures in 2011. The House voted Tuesday to pass a bill amended by the Senate and reconciled by both chambers in December that will compel investigations by the FDIC and Government Accountability Office. Once it becomes law, the bill will call for studies into whether the FDIC├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós loss-share agreements helped accelerate bank failures last year.

As pressure builds to repeal the Dodd-Frank Act, one lawmaker pushed back by formally requesting an analysis of the rulemaking effort and financial consequences under the financial legislative overhaul. Sen. Tim Johnson wrote two letters to public officials Thursday to make the request, with clear intentions to secure a formal, objective analysis that lends credibility to the financial law and overall rulemaking process. Included agencies in the requested analyses: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Federal Housing Finance agency.

On Friday the House of Representatives put largely partisan weight behind a bill that would require the FDIC to investigate the 382 bank failures it has corralled with shutdowns since 2008. If reconciled with a similar bill passed by the Senate, H.R. 2056 could require the FDIC's inspector general to examine whether the current regulatory climate crimps lending for community banks. A House Financial Services Committee statement cites some 140 bank failures over 2009 and 157 over 2010, claiming their concentration in only 10 states.