Servicing

Financial services solutions firm Wolters Kluwer Financial Services (WKFS) released Tuesday its second Regulatory & Risk Management Indicator for the U.S. banking industry, a metric of major concerns worrying banks and credit unions nationwide. According to the latest results, the January 2014 indicator registered 121, a jump up from the 2013 baseline score of 100.

David Stevens, President & CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association , joins the show to discuss an “economic wealth gap being created in terms of access to homeownership”. ...

TeleVoice, a Houston-based provider of customized call center solutions, announced the launch of a new company website to better support the company’s growth and its mission to help mortgage servicers improve customer service and guarantee compliance.

Real estate investment trust (REIT) New Residential Investment Corp. announced a commitment to purchase interests in a $900 million pool of non-agency loans. According to a release from New Residential, the loans involved in the deal were previously securitized by an affiliate of Springleaf Financial Corporation, which was previously affiliated with AIG until it was acquired by Fortress Investment Group managed funds in 2010. Though the terms of the deal were not disclosed, New Residential expects to settle the acquisition by the end of this year's first quarter.

Baker Donelson, a law firm with practices in a wide range of fields, announced the addition of Amanda Berry to its Orlando office.

While seemingly innocuous, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) push to change reporting requirements under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act may have unintended consequences for both servicers and legal teams to assess discriminatory lending practices. The CFPB is inviting input on both the content and the method of reporting. Now is the time to speak up on these matters.

While mortgage origination volumes looked different last year compared to 2012, the list of top lenders looked very much the same. In full-year originations, Wells Fargo held on to its top spot, generating approximately $351 billion in loans—about 19 percent of last year’s total volume, according to Mortgage Daily. JPMorgan Chase followed up at No. 2 at $168 billion.

A regulator who recently took actions to curb growth at Ocwen has now turned his eye to Nationstar. In a letter addressed to the company, Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of New York's Department of Financial Services, said his agency has concerns "that the explosive growth at Nationstart and other nonbank mortgage servicers may create capacity issues that put homeowners at risk."

Three special servicers—Nationstar, Ocwen, and Walter Investment Corp.—released their fourth-quarter and year-end earnings reports with revenue increases and increasingly active originations sectors. At least one group of analysts suggests special servicers might “become the next generation of non-prime originators,” according to a report earlier this year from Moody’s.

Regulators have recently moved to curb growth at non-bank servicers amid concerns about their practices—and that might actually be for the best, say analysts for Moody's Investors Service. At the same time, they worry that companies might attempt to offset any slowdown in growth by shifting business models and originating non-prime mortgages, “a net credit negative.”