Tag Archives: loan originator

Better to Be a Banker or a Non-Banker?

Posted on by

 

The Community Home Lenders Association (CHLA) has prepared an interesting chart, Comparison of Consumer and Financial Regulation of Non-bank Mortgage Lenders vs. Banks.  The CHLA is a trade association that represents non-bank lenders, so the chart has to be read in that context. The side-by side-chart compares the regulation of non-banks to banks under a variety of statutes and regulations.  By way of example, the chart leads off with the following (click on the chart to see it better):

CLHA Chart

The chart emphasizes all the ways that non-banks are regulated where banks are exempt as well as all of the ways that they are regulated in the identical manner. Given that this is an advocacy document, it only mentions in passing the ways that banks are governed by various little things like “generic bank capital standards” and safety and soundness regulators. That being said, it is still good to look through the chart to see how non-bank regulation has been increasing since the passage of Dodd-Frank.

Expanding the Credit Box

Posted on by

Tracy Rosen

DBRS has posted U.S. Residential Mortgage Servicing Mid-Year Review and 2015 Outlook. There is a lot of interest in it, including a table that demonstrates how “the underwriting box for prime mortgages slowly keeps getting wider.” (7) The report notes that

While most lenders continue to originate only QM [Qualified Mortgage] loans some have expanded their criteria to include Non-QM loans. The firms that are originating Non-QM loans typically ensure that they are designated as Ability-to-Repay (ATR) compliant and adhere to the standards set forth in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) Reg Z, Section 1026.43(c). Additionally, most Non-QM lenders are targeting borrowers with high FICO scores (typically 700 and above), low loan to values (generally below 80%) and a substantial amount of liquid reserves (usually two to three years). Furthermore, most require that the borrower have no late mortgage payments in the last 24 months and no prior bankruptcy, foreclosure, deed-in-lieu or short sale. DBRS believes that for the remainder of 2015 the industry will continue to see only a few Non-QM loan originators with very conservative programs.

CFPB ATR And QM Rules

The ATR and QM rules (collectively, the Rules) issued by the CFPB require lenders to demonstrate they have made a reasonable and good faith determination, based on verified and documented information, that a borrower has a reasonable ability to repay his or her loan according to its terms. The Rules also give loans that follow the criteria a safe harbor from legal action. (8)

DBRS believes

that the issuance of the ATR and QM rules removed much of the ambiguity that caused many originators to sit on the sidelines for the last few years by setting underwriting standards that ensure lenders only make loans to borrowers who have the ability to repay them. In 2015, most of the loans that were originated were QM Safe Harbor. DBRS recognizes that the ATR and QM rules are still relatively new, having only been in effect for a little over a year, and believes that over time, QM Rebuttable Presumption and Non-QM loan originations will likely increase as court precedents are set and greater certainty around liabilities and damages is established. In the meantime, DBRS expects that most lenders who are still recovering from the massive fines they had to pay for making subprime loans will not be originating anything but QM loans in 2015 unless it is in an effort to accommodate a customer with significant liquid assets. As a result, DBRS expects the availability of credit to continue to be constrained in 2015 for borrowers with blemished credit and a limited amount of cash reserves. (8)

The DBRS analysis is reasonable, but I am not so sure that lenders are withholding credit because they “are still recovering from the massive fines they had to pay for making subprime loans . . ..” There may be a sense of caution that arises from new CFPB enforcement. But if there is money to be made, past missteps are unlikely to keep lenders from trying to make it.

CFPB Mortgage Supervision Highlights

Posted on by

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued its Supervisory Highlights for Winter 2015. The highlights include a section on Mortgage Origination and “largely focuses on Supervision’s examination findings and observations from July 2014 to December 2014.” (9)

The headings of this section give a sense of the CFPB’s work in this area:

  • Loan originators cannot receive compensation based on a term of a transaction
  • Improper use of lender credit absent changed circumstances
  • Failing to provide the Good Faith Estimate in a timely manner
  • Improperly using advertisements with triggering terms without the required additional disclosures
  • Adverse action notice deficiencies and failure to provide the notice in a timely manner
  • Deficiencies in compliance management systems

For good or for ill, these are pretty modest examination findings. They certainly don’t reveal the fire-breathing regulator that some had prophesied. I was particularly interested in the last finding:

an effective compliance management system includes board and management oversight, a compliance program, a consumer complaint management program, and a compliance audit program. The board of directors and senior management should, among other things, adopt clear policy statements concerning consumer compliance, establish a compliance function to set policies and procedures, and assign resources to the compliance function commensurate with the size and complexity of the supervised entity’s practices and operations. A compliance program should include policies and procedures, training, and monitoring and corrective action processes. A compliance audit program should assist the board of directors or board committees in determining whether policies and standards adopted by the board are being implemented, and should also identify any significant gaps in board policies and standards. (13)

Compliance management systems are intended to create a culture of compliance within an organization, from top to bottom. The CFPB found that one or more financial institutions had weak compliance management systems that would allow for numerous violations of federal regulations governing mortgage lending. It is important for the CFPB to focus on these compliance issues now, before the mortgage market really froths up and carries mortgage professionals away from appropriate underwriting and servicing.