Savings institutions reported a total of $200.9 billion of residential MBS in their retained portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2011, up marginally from the end of the previous year. But the heart of the industry – firms regulated by the Office of Thrift Supervision – actually posted a small decline in their MBS holdings during the period. The OTS itself is being phased out as a separate federal regulator, although the savings association charter will continue under the supervision of a dedicated unit in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. OTS-regulated thrifts held $157.6 billion of MBS in their portfolios at the end of... [Includes two data charts]

While federal agencies gather comments on a proposed rule to establish margin and capital requirements for various swap entities, experts say it’s not altogether clear how the proposed rule would apply to the GSEs. Final comments are due June 24 on a rule proposed by five federal agencies that would require swap entities regulated by the agencies to collect minimum amounts of initial margin and variation margin from counterparties to non-cleared swaps and non-cleared security-based swaps. The five agencies that issued the proposed rule last month are the Federal Reserve, the Farm Credit Administration, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp...

Industry representatives are making headway in obtaining clarification from the Federal Reserve on various aspects of the agency’s controversial regulation on loan originator compensation. But there are a number of key questions that still have to be addressed, and until they are, lenders need to proceed carefully, according to a top official at one of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders. One area in which the industry needs clarification has to do with compensation based on “time spent” as it pertains to different loan programs and products, and whether compensation can be established on a loan-by-loan basis or by...

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency recently released a letter on preemption maintaining that, under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, its 2004 preemption rule still applies to national banks...

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., as the receiver of Washington Mutual, earlier this month sued Lender Processing Services of Jacksonville, FL, and CoreLogic of Santa Ana, CA, and their corporate parents and affiliates for a combined $283.5 million, alleging gross negligence and breach of contract related to appraisals performed for hundreds of the defunct lender's mortgages between 2006 and 2008...

Staff at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and other legal professionals are scrutinizing the fundamental questions the foreclosure crisis has raised about the adequacy of the legal framework for modern mortgage note transactions, especially when it comes to transferring and enforcing notes and mortgages, and how best to resolve them. The role of the Mortgage Electronic Registration System is a part of the discussion. To date, they are relying upon a number of issues that have been identified in a draft discussion document prepared recently by the Permanent Editorial Board of the Uniform Commercial Code, in conjunction with...

The mortgage banking industry is concerned that the Federal Reserve’s proposed rule on escrow accounts for higher-priced mortgage loans – especially the vast expansion of escrow account disclosure – is duplicative, unduly burdensome, and may be superseded shortly after it is implemented by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau...

The Treasury Market Practices Group wants to improve efficiency in the agency MBS market by imposing charges for failure to complete transactions. “The TMPG is proposing fails charges in the agency debt and agency MBS markets in order to reduce the incidence of delivery failures in the market,” said Tom Wipf, chair of...

A bill that would create a legislative framework for a covered bond market in the U.S. cleared a House subcommittee with bipartisan support this week following some fine tuning by its sponsors to address concerns raised by critics and regulators. The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and...

One of the emerging compliance priorities for mortgage lenders will be to synchronize as much as possible their adoption of separate rules for “qualified mortgages” and “qualified residential mortgages” developed by federal regulators following the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Adding to the challenge is...