Home Loan Servicing Solutions, Ltd. (HLSS) is preparing an initial public offering (IPO) of 18.3 million shares. HLSS is a spin-off of Georgia-based Ocwen Financial Corporation. Simultaneously with the offering, HLSS founder and chairman of the board of directors, William C. Erbey, will purchase $10 million of HLSS's ordinary shares at the same price as the IPO. HLSS plans to distribute at least 90 percent of its net income to shareholders through monthly cash dividends.

Claims Recovery Financial Services, LLC (CRFS) has hired Lynette Richter as consulting manager. She will be responsible for overseeing all operational aspects of the firm's newly launched consulting and training group. Richter has over 25 years of management, technical, and consulting experience in the mortgage servicing profession. Prior to CRFS, she was director of quality assurance with the consulting firm Lyons McCloskey, LLC.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency shut down First National Bank of Olathe in Kansas on Friday evening and appointed the FDIC as receiver. So far this year, 64 insured institutions have landed on the FDIC's failed bank list. First National Bank of Olathe is the first Kansas-based institution to make that list in 2011. Enterprise Bank & Trust of Clayton Missouri agreed to take over the failed lender.

The law firm of Dyke, Henry, Goldsholl & Winzerling P.L.C. recently announced that partner Rosanna Henry has been elected to the board of the American Legal and Financial Network (ALFN). Henry was elected as ALFN's affiliated attorney trustee board seat, her affiliation being the Legal League 100 consortium of default servicing law firms.

CoreLogic announced the availability of RiskModel Version 4.4 this week. The new technology offering is an analytics application that forecasts future mortgage prepayments, defaults, losses, and cash flows at both the loan and portfolio level. This latest version integrates the CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI) with new transition and loss-given-default models for Alt-A first and second-lien mortgages, allowing more than 75 percent of the loans in the development dataset to be estimated at the ZIP code level.

Servicers completed 2,213 pre-foreclosure short sales and deeds-in-lieu (DIL) under the government's Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) program during the month of June. Treasury's latest report shows the program is beginning to pick up steam. The number of completed HAFA transactions climbed 55 percent compared to the 1,428 transactions completed in May. That follows a 70 percent jump in finalized HAFA deals between the months of March and April.

Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden has announced his opposition to the proposed $8.5 million Bank of America settlement. He sent a petition to the New York Supreme Court expressing his disapproval and requesting permission to intervene in the court's review of the settlement. ""I am intervening to enforce our laws and to protect Delaware investors who may have been harmed by these toxic securities,"" Biden said. ""Intervening in this settlement puts us in position to ensure that the banks are playing by the rules.""

Mortgage delinquencies remain elevated while other aspects of the consumer credit picture, such as bankcard performance, are improving, according to a new report from Experian. The credit bureau says instances of 60-day mortgage delinquencies have risen by 25 percent from 2007, prior to the recession, while 60-day credit card delinquencies have decreased 20 percent since that time. Portland shows the greatest increase in missed mortgage payments, almost double since 2007.

Ally Financial Inc. reported a profit for the second quarter of 2011, but its results were down from previous earnings. Net income for Q2 was $113 million, a decline from $146 million in the previous quarter and from $565 million one year ago. The company says reducing risk in its legacy mortgage portfolio has been among the top priorities. Ally's GMAC Mortgage has completed more than 700,000 loan workouts for defaulted homeowners since 2008. The mortgage unit says it modifies two loans for every one foreclosure.

On a national level, mortgage fraud risk has declined 2.3 percent over the year but has remained relatively steady for the last five quarters, according to Interthinx's second-quarter risk report. Three states where the risk of mortgage fraud remains highest are Nevada, Arizona, and California. Separately, the FBI released its own report, citing short sale fraud as a growing problem. The FBI says industry insiders and organized crime groups from overseas are the most common perpetrators of mortgage fraud.