Category: Top National News

Mortgage Daily, June 14, 2018Primary home lenders refinanced 104,863 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans during April, according to a report from the two firms’ regulator and conservator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the slowest month on record for GSE refinances.

MarketWatch, June 12, 2018–Andrea RiquierThe Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday announced that Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. will pay more than $15 million to settle charges that its employees misled customers, causing them to overpay for residential mortgage-backed securities.

American Banker, June 12, 2018–Rachel Witkowski (subscription)The Treasury Department is expected to strike a middle path in upcoming recommendations on regulating the fintech sector, laying out how fintech oversight could be incorporated in existing rules without creation of an entirely new regulatory framework.

Wall Street Journal, June 12, 2018–Esther Fung (subscription)The mergers-and-acquisition bug has hit the real-estate investment trust industry, the long-anticipated result of the discounts that REIT stocks have been trading at compared with the private-market valuations of their properties.

National Mortgage News, June 11, 2018–Brad Finkelstein (subscription)Genworth Financial’s mortgage insurance business, which had slipped in market share, has more certainty about its future prospects after a federal government committee approved the holding company’s acquisition by China Oceanwide.

Bloomberg, June 12, 2018–Sarah Mulholland (subscription)As they battle the rise of e-commerce, U.S. mall owners are trying to clear their books of fading centers so they can focus on the most-profitable ones. That’s proving difficult, with just a shallow pool of investors who are willing to take on a declining mall and even fewer who would pay what the landlords want.

Forbes, June 8, 2018–Trefis TeamThe trend of a sequential decline in the total mortgage servicing portfolio for the five largest U.S. banks continued in the first quarter. U..S. Bancorp has bucked this trend over the years, though.

American Banker, June 8, 2018–Kate Berry (subscription)Mick Mulvaney, the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said Friday that the agency fired more than 60 members of three advisory boards because the boards were simply too big. Mulvaney also said he wants some future advisory board meetings to be held in private because he fears information will be leaked to the media.

Mortgage Daily, June 8, 2018PHH Corp. is celebrating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s dismissal of a closely watched case involving alleged violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.

HousingWire, June 8, 2018–Kelsey RamirezTrepp, a provider of data, analytics and technology to the global securities and investment management industries, is predicting most, if not all, of the nation’s 38 largest banks will past this year’s test, despite the harsher test.