The CFPB has issued an amendment to its guidance on service providers, clarifying that mortgage lenders have a degree of flexibility in deciding the appropriate course of action for managing their risk. In its revised bulletin, the bureau began by noting that it “recognizes that the use of service providers is often an appropriate business decision for supervised banks and nonbanks. “Supervised banks and nonbanks may outsource certain functions to service providers due to resource constraints, use service providers to develop and market additional products or services, or rely on expertise from service providers that would not otherwise be available without significant investment,” it added. However, the mere fact that a supervised bank or nonbank enters into a business relationship ...

The CFPB’s latest supervisory highlights report provides some Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data collection and reporting reminders for 2017. For starters, beginning with HMDA data collected in 2017 and submitted in 2018, responsibility to receive and process HMDA data will transfer from the Federal Reserve Board to the CFPB. “The HMDA agencies have agreed that a covered institution filing HMDA data collected in or after 2017 with the CFPB will be deemed to have submitted the HMDA data to the appropriate federal agency,” the bureau stated. (The HMDA agencies are the CFPB, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Fed, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.) ...

The recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in the dispute between the CFPB and PHH Corp. has some significant enforcement implications for the bureau, according to a top compliance attorney. At stake in particular is the bureau’s authority to enforce federal consumer financial protection laws as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA) prohibition of unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices (UDAAP). In a recent client note, Barbara Mishkin, of counsel in the Philadelphia office of the Ballard Spahr law firm, noted that among the court’s findings was that the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act’s three-year statute of limitations (SOL) applies to the agency’s administrative enforcement actions. “Not only did ...

Vendor Provides TRID-Oriented Video Content. Fast Forward Stories, a Bellingham, WA, provider of “brand-able” video content for the mortgage, title and real estate industries, recently released a download-ready library of 26 mortgage explainer videos on the CFPB’s Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure Rule (TRID).... ICYMI: Here’s What Happens to Fines, Penalties Levied by the CFPB. A new report from the Government Accountability Office summarizes what happens to the fines and penalties the CFPB imposes on financial institutions for mortgage-related offenses, as follows ...

Social media and mobile-digital communications have already reshaped a number of industries, and mortgage banking isn’t going to be any different, according to a leading guru in the field. Many of today’s loan officers are going to become obsolete unless they adapt to rapidly shifting consumer expectations, said Clara Shih, CEO and founder of Hearsay Social, during a session at the recent annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association. Although there are some ...

RE/MAX Holdings is working to place mortgage brokers in real estate brokerage locations using a franchise model that the firm has used to become the top residential home seller. Officials at RE/MAX stress that the Motto Mortgage effort is compliant with stringent regulations regarding the mixing of real estate agents and mortgage offerings. Dave Liniger, CEO of RE/MAX, said many real estate agents and brokerages are eager to work closely with loan originators. “However, compliance remains...

Collecting disaggregated race and ethnicity data a full year before the revised Home Mortgage Disclosure Act regulations become effective will benefit covered creditors as they become used to the new requirements and make the necessary system adjustments to accommodate a new wave of granular HMDA data, according to industry attorneys. A policy statement issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in late September creates a temporary safe harbor for lenders that take advantage of the one-year window – Jan. 1, 2017, through Dec. 31, 2017 – to collect disaggregated ethnic and racial information in their home-loan application if borrowers agree to provide it. Previous amendments to HMDA will require...

HomeBridge Financial Services this week agreed to buy the assets of Prospect Mortgage, marking one of the largest acquisitions of the year and stoking the hopes of investment bankers that more deals may lay ahead. But HomeBridge’s purchase of Prospect could turn out to be an anomaly. According to HomeBridge CEO Peter Norden, the two parties had been talking on and off about combining forces for roughly five years. For Norden, the combination of the two nonbanks – both privately held – is...

Top mortgage industry representatives urged the CFPB to do more to facilitate the curing of loans with errors under the agency’s controversial Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure rule, otherwise known as TRID. One such organization was the Housing Policy Council of the Financial Services Roundtable. In its comment letter to the CFPB, the HPC said providing more formal guidance on when and how lenders may correct or cure errors is not just a question of potential liability for lenders; it’s also important in reducing the uncertainty of customers if they experience varying interpretations by different lenders. “We recognize that it is difficult to anticipate all types of potential errors in advance,” said the HPC. “There ...