Virginia. The state assembly passed legislation on March 15 expanding the acceptance of electronic signatures in the state. The new law provides that financial disclosure forms, lobbyist registration statements and notary applications for recommission may be signed...

Bureau of Consumer Financial ProtectionTaking Consumer Complaints. The BCFP’s implementation team is seeking comment on receiving and processing consumer complaints, which is one the fledgling agency’s functions when it goes fully operational as scheduled on July 21. The implementation team, which is...

Commercial banks posted a solid 7.3 percent increase in their holdings of MBS over the second half of 2010, emerging as the top investor class in the market, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. Commercial banks held...[Includes one data chart]

Despite heavy refinance activity, declining house prices and the lure of the government-backed securitization market, banks and thrifts managed to increase their retained first-lien mortgage portfolios in 2010 – including a measurable jump in the fourth quarter... [Includes one chart and one graph]

The largest states in terms of FHA mortgage volume accounted for more than half of total FHA lending in 2010, boosted by a surge in purchase lending. The top 10 states in FHA origination volume last year held a 52.4 percent market share, up from 49.6 percent in 2009 and 48.8 percent in 2008, according...[Includes one data chart]

The continuing decline in mortgage broker production and the growing success of wholesale correspondent originations led to a slowdown in “direct” mortgage originations in 2010, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis. Direct mortgage originations include...[Includes one data chart]

The leading financial institutions that provide mortgage loans eligible to be sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continued to gradually tighten their underwriting and incrementally increase the quality of their business in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to the latest data from the Inside Mortgage Finance MBS Database. As refinance mortgages became...[Includes one data chart]

The advance business of the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks continued to shrink again in the fourth quarter of 2010, dropping 24.2 percent from the previous year to $478.59 billion, according to preliminary figures released by the FHLBank Office of Finance. The decline came...[Includes one data chart]

Securitization remained the dominant method of financing new residential mortgages during 2010 despite the fact that the non-agency MBS market remains in shambles. Some 84.9 percent of the $1.570 trillion of home loans originated last year were pooled...[Includes one data chart]