Tag Archives: OCC

Location, location, location. Elizabeth Warren says ""that's the real estate mantra, and the new consumer bureau is following the professional's lead."" The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced late last week that the future permanent headquarters of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will be located at 1700 G Street, NW in Washington, D.C., just across the street from the White House complex.

When evidence surfaced last fall of flawed foreclosure documentation and robo-signers within some of the nation's largest servicing shops, federal regulators launched an investigation into the foreclosure and servicing practices of 14 companies. Officials say they've uncovered ""critical deficiencies and shortcomings"" and will be enforcing sanctions and penalties against servicers and developing a set of national mortgage servicing standards for the industry.

Veros, a provider of collateral valuation technology, enterprise risk management, and predictive analytics, recently released a white paper titled ""Interagency Appraisal & Evaluation Guidelines: Insights into Understanding and Integrating the New Guidance."" The white paper seeks to clarify the expanded language in the guidelines issued by federal regulators last December.

State and federal regulators have shut down four more community-based lenders. This latest round of closings targeted institutions in California, Florida, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and brings the number of bank failures so far in 2011 to 18. Peoples State Bank in Hamtramck, Michigan, was the largest of last weekend's failures and the only one which carried a loss-share agreement from the FDIC.

On Monday, January 31, the federal bank, thrift, and credit union regulatory agencies, along with the Farm Credit Administration began accepting federal registrations for licensing under the Secure and Fair Enforcement for Mortgage Licensing (SAFE) Act. Under the SAFE Act, originators of residential mortgage loans employed by banks, savings, associations, credit unions, or Farm Credit System institutions must register with the registry, obtain a unique identifier from the registry and maintain their registrations.

The task force assembled by federal banking regulators to investigate the industry's servicing and foreclosure practices after the robo-signing scandal broke is expected to release the results of its findings as early as February. John Walsh, acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, says on-site reviews by task force examiners are ""largely complete"" and federal agencies have begun the next phase of formulating actions that should be taken to ""fix problems in the mortgage servicing and foreclosure area.""

New guidelines released last month for real estate appraisals and evaluations will require any transaction originated or purchased by certain agencies to report conditions that affect the estimate of the collateral's market value. The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council for real estate appraisals and evaluations require transactions to address the actual physical condition and characteristics as well as the economic and market conditions that may affect value.

New data from federal regulators show that the nation's largest banks and thrifts repossessed nearly 187,000 homes during the third quarter of 2010. The number of foreclosures completed during the three-month period is up 57.5 percent from a year earlier. The report shows that new foreclosures initiated also rose to more than 382,000. Although foreclosure activity increased during the quarter, servicers reported almost twice as many home retention actions as completed home forfeiture actions.

Former comptroller of the currency John C. Dugan will rejoin Covington & Burling LLP as a partner, according to an announcement from the Washington, D.C., firm. Dugan will chair the firm's Financial Institutions Group and advise clients on legal matters affected by increased regulatory requirements resulting from the financial crisis. Dugan led the U.S. Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for five years, until stepping down from the role on August 14, 2010.

The call for federal officials to establish industry-wide mortgage servicing and foreclosure standards is getting louder. A group of more than 50 senior economists, academic leaders, and influential investors sent a letter to the heads of federal regulatory agencies Tuesday, urging them to take the lead in setting national standards for mortgage loan servicers. The group argues that widely reported fraud in servicers' dealings with homeowners and foreclosure procedures demands new standards be adopted now.