The use of Federal Home Loan Bank advances among their bank and thrift members fell overall during both the first quarter of 2011 and on a yearly basis, with two of the three largest users showing a drop-off larger than the overall industry’s year-over-year rate of decline, according to the Inside Mortgage Finance Bank Mortgage Database.

Bank of America successfully turned back a class-action lawsuit filed by disgruntled investors in Countrywide MBS, but new cases stemming from the collapse of the non-agency mortgage market continue to be filed. According to Judge Mariana Pfaelzer’s dismissal order in the U.S. District Court of the Central District of California, BofA and its...

Banks reported a significant decline in the volume of mortgage repurchases and indemnifications they recorded during the first quarter of 2011, but buybacks clearly continue to weigh on mortgage banking profitability. According to a new call report analysis by Inside Mortgage Trends, banks reported a total of $3.83 billion in mortgage repurchases and indemnifications during the first quarter. That was down 19.2 percent from the previous three-month period.The buyback problem has clearly improved since the nine months between the... [includes one data chart and one graph]

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2010 continued to take a beating from their MBS guarantees on high-risk mortgages, but the performance of these loans did improve somewhat last year, according to a new report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Since the beginning of 2008, the two government-sponsored enterprises have burned through...

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta announced it has appointed Robert Dozier as the Bank’s new executive vice president and chief business officer.

A steep decline in loan origination activity dragged mortgage banking income during the first quarter of 2011 to its lowest level in over two years, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis. Earnings reports filed by 21 major mortgage lenders showed aggregate mortgage banking income of $3.097 billion for... [Includes one data chart and one graph]

The average mortgage banking business reported increased profitability in the fourth quarter of last year, but 2010 didn’t match the industry’s success back in 2009, according to the latest Mortgage Bankers Performance Report from the Mortgage Bankers Association. The average firm participating in the MBA survey reported...

The Treasury Department this week announced that it is withholding servicer incentive payments for the three largest lenders in the industry following compliance reviews that found them needing significant improvement in their Home Affordable Modification Program activity. The three servicers – Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo – each typically collect about $7 million a month in servicer compensation for non-agency mortgages, according to an Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of Treasury data. Treasury found a fourth servicer – Ocwen Financial – was also in need of...[contains one data chart]

Using consumer behavior analytics, FICO said it has developed a method to profile so-called “strategic defaulters” in order to determine who is most likely to try to skip out on their mortgage loans. The credit-assessment firm, best known for its FICO credit score, said its research improves on...

Even though only 14 servicers were ordered by federal regulators to change some of their practices, there is a general understanding that the rest of the industry will also have to adhere to some of the new standards just to keep up and avoid future problems, according to experts at a webinar hosted this week by...