The Lede

The commercial mortgage-backed securities delinquency rate increased seven basis points in March after sharp drops in January and February, reported Trepp, New York.

Equifax, Atlanta, reported first mortgage originations totaled $1.82 trillion in 2016, a year over year increases of nearly 43 percent, while first mortgage originations totaled 7.71 million, a 31.6 percent increase.

MBA Education presents a Webinar, Recent Developments in HECM/Reverse Mortgage Lending Webinar, on Monday, Apr. 18 from 2:00-3:30 p.m. ET.

MBA Education presents its popular Advanced Servicing Workshop on Wednesday, Apr. 20 and Thursday, Apr. 21 at CoreLogic in Westlake (Dallas), Texas.

Bloomberg, Apr. 5, 2016--Schoenberg, Tom  Stuart Delery, the Justice Department official overseeing civil investigations of banks for conduct related to the financial crisis, is stepping down April 14 to explore options in the private sector.

National Mortgage News, Apr. 11, 2016--Berry, Kate Congress should consider giving direct authority over nonbank mortgage servicers to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, according to a report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office.

National Mortgage News, Apr. 11, 2016--Peters, Andy PHH Corp. in Mount Laurel, N.J., said its loan closing dollar volume will decrease this year, after Bank of America's Merrill Lynch announced plans to withdraw business from the firm.

Bloomberg, Apr. 11, 2016--Tan, Gillian Annaly Capital Management is buying Hatteras Financial, a smaller REIT that buys mortgage debt, in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $1.5 billion.

MarketWatch, Apr. 11, 2016--Riquier, Andrea As government entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have struggled with the legacies of the housing bust, they've sold billions of dollars' of delinquent notes to big institutional investors, who resell them in turn.

Bloomberg, Apr. 11, 2016--Schoenberg, Tom  Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will pay $5.1 billion to settle a U.S. probe into its handling of mortgage-backed securities involving allegations that loans weren't properly vetted before being sold to investors as high-quality bonds.

HousingWire, Apr. 8, 2016--Lane, Ben In a letter to Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman joins the chorus calling for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to reduce the mortgage balances of struggling borrowers.

Reuters, Apr. 9, 2016--Stempel, Jonathan Wells Fargo & Co admitted to deceiving the U.S. government into insuring thousands of risky mortgages, as it formally reached a record $1.2 billion settlement of a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit.

National Mortgage Professional, Apr. 8, 2016--Hall, Phil At a hearing  before the Senate Banking Committee, Mortgage Bankers Association Senior Vice President of Legislative and Political Affairs Bill Killmer urged the CFPB to provide clear "rules of the road" whenever it plans to create new rules or to update both existing guidelines and the interpretations of longstanding policies.

Minnesota Public Radio, Apr. 5, 2016--Moylan, Martin  Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari believes not enough has been done to protect the country should one or more of the nation's megabanks face failure.

National Mortgage News, Apr. 8, 2016--Collins, Brian Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's experiments with selling credit risk to investors are a critical element of new plan to merge the two entities and move them out of conservatorship, but what form so-called credit risk transfers take could make a big difference.

Wall Street Journal, Apr. 6, 2016--Martin, Anya When home buyers go to the closing, it's unlikely they're thinking about what happens if they die before their mortgage gets paid off.

Housing Wire, Apr. 6, 2016--Barraza, Cynthia  After the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure in Oct. 3, 2015, credit unions reportedly began experiencing delays closing home loans, according to data compiled from research firm Callahan & Assocs.

Forbes, Apr. 6, 2016--Razin, Ely We can reasonably expect MetLife's commercial real estate lending to increase in the medium-to-long term by reducing the government-imposed capital requirements required of systemically important financial institutions.

Wall Street Journal, Apr. 7, 2016--Mitchell, Josh More than 40% of Americans who borrowed from the government's main student-loan program aren't making payments or are behind on more than $200 billion owed, raising worries that millions of them may never repay.

Urban Institute, Apr. 7, 2016--Zandi, Mark In today's housing finance system, two behemoth institutions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, control most of the core infrastructure of the secondary market and take on most of its credit risk. While in many ways this system has served the nation well by providing a broad range of borrowers access to credit and a level playing field for lenders of all sizes, our reliance on this duopoly created perverse incentives that ultimately led to too much risk taking, forcing taxpayers to shoulder the resulting cost. 

Wall Street Journal, Apr. 7, 2016--Glazer, Emily In a proxy released Thursday morning, J.P. Morgan pushed back against a shareholder proposal for a bank breakup, pointing to its business synergies, benefits of scale and value to clients.

MarketWatch, Apr. 7, 2016--Riquier, Andrea Americans are becoming more and more credit-worthy, especially when it comes to home equity.

HousingWire, Apr. 8, 2016--Lane, Ben Count Tim Rood, chairman of The Collingwood Group, among those who think the regulatory environment is smothering mortgage lenders.