Tag Archives: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) ambitious effort to build a National Mortgage Database was not taken lightly by lawmakers during a Senate committee hearing Tuesday. Senators expressed discomfort over the idea of having a federal agency track consumer behavior, despite CFPB director Richard Cordray's continued emphasis on the anonymity the database will provide to individual consumers. Cordray also explained that without the database, the agency can't do its job.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced two individuals were added to the bureau's leadership team, and two current staff members will be serving in different roles. Dan Smith was hired as the first assistant director for the newly-created Office of Financial Institutions and Business Liaison. The office was formed to connect the CFPB with bank and nonbank trade associations, financial institutions, and businesses to enhance collaboration and communication.

As part of its ongoing efforts to assist the industry in the implementation of new mortgage guidelines, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued proposed amendments to address questions and clarify the qualified mortgage (QM) and servicing rules first laid out in January. The proposal addresses five topics, including debt-to-income ratio concerns surrounding the Ability to Repay Rule, uncertainties around the temporary QM provision, and which criteria are used to define ""small servicers.""

The Center for Responsible Lending and the Consumers Union, two consumer advocacy organizations, are calling on national lawmakers to create a Homeowner Bill of Rights in order to prevent ""unnecessary foreclosures."" The two groups pointed out in a recent policy brief that most states continue to experience serious delinquencies at a rate of between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 homeowners. While the CFPB has released national guidelines, the groups see a few holes and are calling on lawmakers to establish new rules.

""Uncertainty"" is a term that has plagued the lending industry for some time. Since the introduction of Dodd-Frank three years ago, uncertainty about the future of industry regulation has been a source of concern among close to half of lenders, according to QuestSoft, a Laguna Hills, California-based software provider. QuestSoft's fifth annual compliance survey reveals at least 49 percent of lenders have ranked Dodd-Frank-related uncertainty as a high concern for the past three years.

The CFPB took action against four mortgage insurance companies who gave kickbacks to lenders in exchange for business. The CFPB filed complaints and proposed consent orders against Genworth U.S. Mortgage Insurance Corporation, Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation, Radian Guaranty Inc., and United Guaranty Corporation for their alleged roles in kickback arrangements. ""The orders announced today put an end to these types of arrangements and require these insurers to pay more than $15 million in penalties for violating the law,"" said CFPB director Richard Cordray.

Since December 1, 2011, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has handled more than 63,700 mortgage complaints, according to a report from the bureau. Most of the mortgage complaints were a result of issues borrowers faced when they were not able to make their mortgage payments. Overall, 61 percent of the mortgage complaints dealt with issues related to loan modifications, collections, or foreclosures. The second most common mortgage complaint fell into the ""making payments"" category, which covers issues with loan servicing, payments, or escrow accounts.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) went live Thursday with the nation's largest public database of federal consumer financial complaints. Thursday's launch expands the Consumer Complaint Database from about 19,000 credit card complaints to more than 90,000 complaints on mortgages, student loans, bank accounts and services, and other consumer loans.

The Independent Bankers of America (ICBA) outlined its regulatory priorities for this year at the National Convention and Techworld in Las Vegas earlier this month. The organization addressed several industry reforms and pending regulations it asserts will negatively and unfairly impact community banks. As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and other government agencies work to define new guidelines for the mortgage banking industry, ICBA charges, ""any regulatory response to the financial crisis of 2008, including any changes to the capital standards, should begin with the recognition that community banks were not the cause of that crisis.""

Hope LoanPort (HLP) explained how its platform can help facilitate mortgage servicing transfers following an announcement from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) regarding plans to monitor transfer activity more closely. The HLP structure helps parties involved in the process by allowing existing cases to be transferred between registered mortgage servicers without having to deal with lost documents or the need to resubmit applications for mortgage relief.