Kate Berry has covered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for American Banker since 2016. She joined the publication in 2006 covering mortgage lending and the financial crisis. Berry also has covered big banks including Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo. She has won five awards from the Society of American Business Writers and Editors, and has worked at several news organizations including the Orange County Register, the Los Angeles Business Journal and the Associated Press. Berry began her career as a clerk at the New York Times.
-
A Los Angeles-based community group has dropped its objection to the proposed sale of City National Bank to Royal Bank of Canada and now says the deal should be expedited.
June 24 -
Many lenders may not have been ready for the CFPB's new mortgage disclosure rule if it took effect on Aug. 1 as planned. Now a slip-up by the agency itself has given lenders a two-month reprieve.
June 19 -
Pressure from community groups forced Valley National Bancorp to strengthen its commitment to lend in low-and moderate-income neighborhoods in order to win approval for a Florida acquisition. Other banks, too, are now placing CRA efforts front-and-center as they aim to sell deals to the public and their regulators.
June 19 -
Six servicers were cited for a range of infractions, including a failure to respond to requests for loan modifications and not doing enough to prevent foreclosures. Punishment was harsh for Wells Fargo and HSBC, which are banned from acquiring mortgage servicing rights and entering into new servicing contracts.
June 17 -
The mortgage lender Nationstar Mortgage Holdings is pouring a lot of energy into a digital and mobile homebuying platform called Xome. The strategy could attract tech-savvy millennials but carries plenty of risks including whether consumers would be improperly steered to its products.
June 10 -
The Louisiana Real Estate Appraisers Board said Coester Appraisal Management Group did not violate state law for failing to pay appraisers "customary and reasonable" fees, and that its executive director "misspoke" about a stipulation and order with the AMC.
June 8 -
The Louisiana Real Estate Appraisers Board has fined an appraisal management company $5,000 for failing to pay "customary and reasonable" fees to appraisers.
June 5 -
Ocwen Financial's shares had fallen nearly 7% Friday afternoon, to under $10 apiece, a day after Standard & Poor's Ratings Services put the company's servicer ratings on CreditWatch negative.
June 5 -
As part of its proposed sale to Royal Bank of Canada, City National has made a big Community Reinvestment Act commitment, which includes targeting small-business loans at the minority- and women-owned suppliers of three power companies.
June 4 -
Banks and mortgage lenders are in the final stretch of preparing to deliver new TILA-Respa Integrated Disclosures to homebuyers starting Aug. 1. But it's not just the change of forms that is causing alarm bells. Fines could be steep, and legal liability could be even higher, for violators, while necessary technological changes are expensive, they say.
June 1 -
With older appraisers retiring and fewer and fewer college graduates entering the profession, industry observers say that, in five to 10 years, there won't be enough appraisers to handle the volume of home sales. For lenders, that could mean higher appraisal fees and long delays in closing loans at a time when technology could be speeding up the process.
May 20 -
The Federal Housing Finance Agency provided more details Friday about key features for the new single security that will be issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
May 15 -
With support from Bank of America, a nonprofit lender is trying to revitalize Detroit by offering no-down-payment mortgages at up to 150% of a homes assessed value. The idea is to provide borrowers with enough cash to buy run-down homes and fix them up, and if the program works as promised it could prove to be a template for lending in other cities like Baltimore that have large swaths of boarded-up homes.
May 13 -
A lot of bankers want on-balance-sheet mortgages declared ultrasafe under federal rules, and Wells Fargo executive Brad Blackwell explains why he thinks it's in their self-interest more than ever to live up to their arguments in favor of such a policy.
May 11 -
Bank of America's shareholders cast far fewer votes than a year earlier for a key director who helped combine the titles of chairman and chief executive, allowing Brian Moynihan to hold both posts while sparking anger among investors.
May 8 -
Ocwen Financial failed a test to determine whether it had notified borrowers of missing or incomplete documents for loan modifications in a timely manner, according to the national mortgage settlement monitor.
May 7 -
Bank of America, led by Brian Moynihan, at its annual meeting tried to look responsive to criticisms of its corporate governance, slow turnaround and other matters while announcing it would phase out lending to coal companies.
May 6 -
Banks want all loans held in portfolio to be classified as ultrasafe regardless of the underwriting characteristics or of a bank's asset size. But consumer activists and independent mortgage lenders are raising red flags ahead of possible Senate Banking action.
May 1 -
Ocwen Financial's shares jumped 19% to more than $10 a share as of late morning Friday, the day after it reported a first-quarter profit and highlighted an expansion into mortgage lending.
May 1 -
The troubled Atlanta mortgage servicer's independent auditor has again delayed its 2014 financial results and has raised questions about the firm's viability, CEO Ron Faris said after Ocwen reported a steep earnings drop.
April 30
