U.S. Representative Ed Royce (R-California), a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee and a member of the Capital Markets and GSE Subcommittee and the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee, has introduced the Pay Back the Taxpayers Act of 2015, according to an announcement on Royce's website.

More than 18,000 homeowners in North Carolina have saved their homes as a result of a statewide foreclosure prevention effort, according to a release from the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency (NCHFA).

The latest improvements in regional and state employment statistics across the United States are keeping in line with the latest drop in the nation's unemployment rate (down to 5.6 percent in December) – and in line with analysts' assessments of consistently improving economic and labor conditions.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a bulletin on Tuesday to remind supervised financial institutions of the existing regulatory requirements regarding the confidentiality of supervisory information.

Federal Housing Finance Director (FHFA) Director Mel Watt, testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, which he once sat on as a Democratic U.S. Representative for North Carolina, insisted that mortgage loans with a 3 percent down payment backed by GSEs are no more riskier than those with a loan-to-value (LTV) ratio of lower than 80 percent.

Real estate default services law firm Wilson & Associates, which has two offices in Arkansas and three in Tennessee, has named three new shareholders and hired a new chief financial officer and chief operating officer, according to an announcement from managing partner/shareholder Jennifer Wilson-Harvey.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released its list of Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) performance evaluations that were made public during the month of December 2014 for 30 financial institutions.

Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Mel Watt is scheduled to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday in a hearing entitled "Sustainable Housing Finance: An Update from the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency." In his testimony, Watt is expected to defend last month's decision to lift the suspension of the allocation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac funds into the Housing Trust Fund and the Capital Magnet Fund. The suspension was enacted in November 2008, two months after the government seized control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Atlanta-based mortgage servicer Ocwen Financial has responded to a Notice of Nonperformance filed on Friday by law firm Gibbs & Bruns on behalf of investors BNY Mellon, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, US Bank, and Wells Fargo. Monday, Ocwen attorney Richard A. Jacobsen responded to the allegations with the following statement: "Ocwen continues to be committed to meeting all of its servicing obligations in accordance with its contractual arrangements in the over 2,500 Trusts that it services, and in full cooperation and compliance with its industry regulators. Your clients, on the other hand, are asking Ocwen to turn its back on the Trusts as a whole, on the borrowers, and on public policy. Ocwen declines to do so and reserves all its rights and remedies."

U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), who was elected chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs earlier this month, has announced the members of the five banking subcommittees for the 114th Congress, according to an announcement from the SBC.