A former managing director and global head of structured credit in the investment banking division of Credit Suisse Group pled guilty last week to a scheme to hide losses on non-agency mortgage-backed securities. Kareem Serageldin faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum fine of the greater of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense. The Department of Justice had charged Serageldin with fraudulently inflating the prices of non-agency MBS and ... [Includes four briefs]

Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan this week reiterated his agency’s request for additional legislative authority to regulate the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program by mortgagee letter so that much-needed changes can be implemented immediately. Rather than go through the tedious legislative process of amending HECM legislation to improve the program and reduce HECM losses, expanding HUD’s authority would enable the department to undertake immediate reforms, such as restricting lump sum payments, requiring financial assessments of HECM applicants and requiring borrowers to ...

Ginnie Mae is seeking feedback from dealers, issuers and investors about whether to continue to maintain two separate mortgage-backed securities programs or to consolidate them under a single security. Comments are also being sought on other possible options. Bloomberg.com recently reported that Ginnie Mae sent out questionnaires to Wall Street broker-dealers for their input on the future of both the Ginnie Mae I and Ginnie Mae II MBS programs. The agency has been considering whether it should merge the programs for some time. The Ginnie Mae I single-issuer pool program with stringent pooling requirements began in ...

The non-agency MBS market produced $8.33 billion in new transactions during the first quarter of 2013, its strongest issuance in nearly two years, and did so the old-fashioned way by relying heavily on “new” prime jumbo mortgages. The first three months of 2013 saw nearly a threefold increase in non-agency MBS issuance compared to the previous quarter and was 65.1 percent ahead of the pace set in 2012, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside MBS & ABS. Although over half the issuance volume was in re-securitizations and deals backed by servicer advances, the most encouraging sign was the continued rebound in prime jumbo MBS production. Redwood Trust made good...[Includes three data charts]

It appears that Home Loan Servicing Solutions, a buyer of residential servicing rights, is making money hand-over-fist.

The CFPB is a tough cop on the beat, no doubt. But is the agency and its rules causing certain banks in Oklahoma to exit the residential lending sector?

It appears that Fannie Mae is dialing back on its plan to sell nonperforming residential loans.

Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase continue to post strong residential finance profits, but there is a growing worry that the "mortgage party" may be drawing to a close.

Citadel Loan Servicing Corp. of Irvine, a new subprime lender launched by industry veteran Dan Perl, funded its first loan last week, and is getting a barrage of telephone calls from potential borrowers to its headquarters in Southern California. “We’re getting 25 to 30 inquiries a day,” Perl told Inside Mortgage Trends. The firm is in the process of evaluating between $1.5 million and $2 million in residential loans. The first mortgage it funded was for $315,000 on a home in Orange County, CA. The ...

A total of $47.13 billion of new non-mortgage ABS were issued during the first quarter of 2013, a solid 31.2 percent gain from the end of last year, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking of issuers and underwriters. The fast start for 2013 ABS issuance was up 15.1 percent from the first three months of last year, although it came up short of three of the strongest quarters since the financial market meltdown in late 2008, including the second quarter of 2012. If new issuance can maintain its current pace for the rest of the year, 2013 could see the strongest ABS production volume since before the crash. The driver so far has been...[Includes two data charts]