On Friday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) set out its top Fair Lending priorities for 2017: Redlining; Mortgage and Student Loan Servicing; and Small Business Lending. The CFPB also marked the 40th anniversary of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) and noted its successes during the last five years: (1) More than $400 million [...]
In its December 2016 issue, the Mortgage Compliance Magazine published a collaborative article written by ADI President, Michael Mitchell, and Senior Consultants Rebecca Escario and Jonathon Neil. In this article, titled “Full Disclosure,” we shared our perspective on the challenges facing mortgage lenders in the short-run (i.e., 2016-18) and the long-run (i.e., 2019 and beyond) regarding [...]
Yesterday, the District of Columbia Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals delivered its decision in PHH v. CFPB. The decision said that – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was unconstitutionally structured; and The CFPB’s enforcement of Section 8 of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) governing Marketing Services Agreements (MSA) was incorrect [...]
On September 29, 2016, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) announced the availability of 2015 mortgage lending data submitted in compliance with the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). This database of mortgage activity is relied upon by regulators, examiners, academics, industry leaders, and members of the general public to analyze the performance of mortgage lenders with [...]
On September 28, 2016, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a settlement with Charter Bank of Corpus Christi, Texas related to allegations of discriminatory lending practices on the basis of national origin. The complaint alleges that, from the beginning of 2009 through the second quarter of 2014, Charter Bank "charged hundreds of Hispanic borrowers higher interest [...]
The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit alleging that several mortgage loan modification service providers have violated the federal Fair Housing Act and Equal Credit Opportunity Act by discriminating against Hispanic homeowners. The defendants, The Home Loan Auditors LLC, Century Law Center LLC, SOE Assistance Center Inc., Spieker Law Office, targeted Hispanic homeowners for predatory [...]
BancorpSouth Bank will pay more than $10 million to settle a redlining suit in Mississippi federal court alleging it used mortgage lending policies that unlawfully discriminated against blacks and other residents of predominantly minority communities, federal authorities said Wednesday. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a statement saying BancorpSouth [...]
On June 28, 2016, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) agreed to hear appeals (Reuters, June 28, 2016) from Bank of America and Wells Fargo regarding lawsuits brought by the City of Miami in which the two large mortgage lenders were accused of discriminatory lending practices. Rather than ruling on the merits of the case, [...]
In this contribution to ADI Adviser, ADI Senior Economist Paul J. Strasberg discusses how integrating modeling results can enhance the selection of comparators for a comparative file review (CFR) in a Fair Lending analysis of underwriting. Paul demonstrates how the use of propensity score matching (PSM) "effectively removes the judgments that a lender’s compliance analyst might make when [...]
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced on Wednesday an agreement with First-Citizens Bank & Trust Company resolving allegations that the bank denied mortgage loans to African-American, Latino and Asian-American mortgage applicants at a disproportionately higher rate than white applicants. HUD filed its initial complaint in 2011 after reviewing 2010 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act [...]
