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.
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Freddie Mac posted a third quarter loss of $501 million, its first quarterly loss in four years, but the government-sponsored enterprise will not request a draw from the U.S. Treasury.
November 3 -
The government-sponsored enterprise is working to rebuild partnerships with church organizations and housing financing agencies as part of a broader effort to make owning a home affordable for low- and moderate-income families.
November 2 -
Bank of America has agreed to pay $335 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it misled shareholders about risky mortgages and its dependence on the electronic mortgage registry known as MERS.
November 2 -
City National in Los Angeles reported a 3% increase in third-quarter profit, driven by double-digit loan growth.
October 22 -
Mortgage servicer Ocwen Financial failed four servicing tests in the second half of 2014. Joseph A. Smith Jr., the monitor of the $25 billion national mortgage settlement, said the Atlanta servicer was beginning to show progress in complying with terms of the 2012 agreement.
October 22 -
The head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warned software vendors that they face new scrutiny from regulators for causing mortgage lenders to miss the TRID-compliance deadline. He was vague about how far the CFPB might go, but many in the industry are prone to fear the worst.
October 21 -
Housing finance reform in Congress is stalled, but Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (often under pressure from their regulator) are forming partnerships, developing new products and finding ways to share risk with the private sector to correct flaws in the housing system.
October 20 -
Mortgage servicers have gotten a rare reprieve from the Federal Housing Administration.
October 20 -
Mortgage servicers have gotten a rare reprieve from the Federal Housing Administration.
October 20 -
Next year Fannie will require that mortgage lenders use so-called trended credit data for all mortgage borrowers, a move it says could broaden access to credit.
October 19 -
Next year Fannie will require that mortgage lenders use so-called trended credit data for all mortgage borrowers, a move it says could broaden access to credit.
October 19 -
Results from the largest U.S. bank, and the first major player to report on its latest quarter, showed widespread revenue strains and only added to questions about the industry's growth prospects in the near future.
October 13 -
A California company called NEFT wants to provide the online meeting place where debt-laden borrowers get together with lenders and credit bureaus to negotiate repayment plans. Backed by some prominent investors, NEFT says it offers carrots to get all the parties to participate.
October 5 -
It's hard to decide which is more surprising: that the largest U.S. bank has almost abandoned the business of making home loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration, that lots of big banks could be right behind it, or that the FHA might not even need to care.
September 28 -
Bank of America Chief Executive Brian Moynihan gets to keep his chairman's title but still faces a major capital plan deadline in just a week and then will have to sort through the fallout from what has been a challenging third quarter for the entire industry.
September 22 -
Bank of America shareholders voted Tuesday to allow Brian Moynihan to keep his dual titles of chairman and chief executive, with 63% of votes cast in favor of Moynihan.
September 22 -
Wells Fargo has seven women on its 16-member board, a 44% ratio that is twice that of the average top 25 bank. It got there, in large part, by looking beyond C-suites for qualified directors.
September 22 -
Competitors have been spreading rumors that JPMorgan Chase is quitting the field, the bank's CEO said in a wide-ranging question-and-answer session that touched on Bitcoin, China, and his retirement plans.
September 18 - North Carolina
Brian Moynihan, Bank of America's chairman and CEO, told investors Thursday that revenue from fixed-income and equity markets should decline by 5% to 6% in the third quarter compared with a year ago. The Charlotte, N.C., bank will continue to have a higher efficiency ratio relative to its peers because of the high costs of paying financial advisers.
September 17 -
Wells Fargo is raising minimum credit score requirements on Federal Housing Administration loans, part of the ongoing jockeying by large banks to limit lawsuits by the Justice Department for defective FHA loans.
September 17
