Last week, the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs committee endorsed a handful of legislative provisions related to mortgage financing, including a measure that tackles one aspect of the CFPB’s integrated-disclosure rule under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.One section of the still-to-be-named bill would remove the three-day waiting period required for the combined TILA/RESPA mortgage disclosure if a creditor extends to a consumer a second offer of credit with a lower annual percentage rate. It also would express the sense of Congress that the CFPB should provide clearer, authoritative guidance with respect to certain issues. A separate section deals with escrow requirements for certain consumer credit transactions. These provisions would provide an ...

More Industry Advice for a Post-Cordray CFPB. Competitive Enterprise Institute financial policy expert John Berlau said last week, “Richard Cordray’s impending resignation as director of the CFPB is long overdue.... Growth of CFPB Leveling Off. The total number of employees at the CFPB came to 1,668 for fiscal year 2017, up 20 positions from the year before, according to the bureau’s latest financial statements for the last two years.... GAO Signs Off on CFPB Financial Statements. The Government Accountability Office audited the CFPB’s financial statements for fiscal years 2016 and 2017, and found they are “presented fairly, in all material respects, in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.”...

Originations of higher-priced mortgages increased significantly in 2016 compared with the previous year, according to an analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets of data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. The analysis excluded government-insured mortgages, multifamily loans and home-improvement loans. Some $28.61 billion of non-government-insured higher-priced mortgages were originated in 2016, up 28.9 percent from the previous year ... [Includes one data chart]

As the mortgage industry prepares for a substantially expanded Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data collection and reporting environment from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, compliance experts are getting a clearer sense of some of the biggest challenges lenders will face – most notably on the technology front as well as fair lending scrutiny.

During the recent annual meeting of the Mortgage Bankers Association, a top compliance expert highlighted some of the biggest issues and concerns the industry faces under the new data collection and reporting regime ushered in by the CFPB’s updated Home Mortgage Disclosure Act rule. The short list of the most significant considerations, of course, includes the fair lending implications of the new requirements. Mitch Kider, chairman and managing partner of the Weiner Brodsky Kider PC law firm in Washington, DC, told attendees at one break-out session that HMDA data accuracy (or errors) sets the tone for an entire CFPB examination. “Most of the new data fields companies already have,” he said. “Do you know what story your data currently tells ...

The CFPB recently issued some proposed policy guidance for its Home Mortgage Disclosure Act rule that could help borrowers on the data privacy front, but it might not be enough, according to one compliance attorney. “On the heels of the Equifax data breach and continued cybersecurity threats, the CFPB’s guidance is a clear attempt to alleviate concerns regarding identity theft and information security,” Alexander Koskey, an associate in the Atlanta office of the Baker Donelson law firm, said in a recent client note. “However, significant privacy concerns persist that the increase in the amount of data that is being disclosed for the first time will make it easier to discover the identity of applicants and borrowers.”Additionally, given that the ...

African-American and Hispanic Borrowers Allegedly Harmed by Provident Will Receive $9 Million in Compensation. Last week, Garden City Group, the settlement administrator for Provident Funding Associates, mailed out checks to African-American and Hispanic borrowers to compensate them for having been unlawfully charged higher interest or broker fees on their mortgages from Provident.... Ocwen Enters Into Agreement with Hawaii to Resolve Regulatory Action. Ocwen Financial settled some outstanding issues with regulatory authorities in Hawaii last week, continuing a streak the nonbank servicer has been on for the last two months or so....

Banks tend to approve a much higher share of applications for jumbo mortgages than nonbanks, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets based on new Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. In 2016, the denial rate for applications for jumbo mortgages was 18.6 percent. The rate tracks total loan applications for jumbo mortgages last year (495,213) and denied applications. The calculation excludes withdrawn applications and ... [Includes one data chart]

Overall denial rates for nonconventional loan applications (FHA, VA and Rural Housing Service) fell slightly in 2016 to 13.4 percent from 13.9 percent in 2015, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data showed. In the nonconventional refinancing segment, denial rates rose to 32.9 percent last year from 30.3 percent in the previous year. Approximately 23.9 percent of FHA loan applicants were denied last year while VA turned down 20.0 percent of borrowers who sought a VA loan. An estimated 14.3 percent of FHA purchase-loan applicants were turned down. VA denied 11.4 percent of its purchase-mortgage applicants although its total purchase-loan applications are far fewer compared to FHA. According to the Federal Reserve’s overview of the 2016 HMDA data, as in past years, blacks, Hispanics and “other minority” borrowers had notably higher denial rates overall compared to white borrowers. Denial rates for ...

The House Financial Services Committee recently passed a handful of mortgage-related bills, including H.R. 2954, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Adjustment Act, introduced in June by Rep. Tom Emmer, R-MN. His measure would exempt all but the top 10 percent of mortgage lenders from some pending data collection and reporting requirements under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, according to an analysis by Inside the CFPB. Starting with 2017 data (to be submitted to the CFPB in early 2018), the volume threshold for HMDA respondents is a minimum of 25 originated mortgage loans in each of the last two years (i.e., 25 loans in 2015 and 25 loans in 2016). This volume threshold only applies to depositories in 2017, then applies to ...