Mortgages

Data breaches have become scarily commonplace. But even small financial institutions can take action to thwart hackers and minimize losses.

Commerce Union Bancshares in Brentwood, Tenn., plans to close mortgage offices in Ohio, Illinois and Kentucky and to transfer the employees to Bridgeview Bank Group in Bridgeview, Ill.

Congress should consider giving direct authority over nonbank mortgage servicers to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, according to a report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office. The report said there should be "parity" among financial regulators in the oversight of regulated entities and third parties they do business with.

Goldman Sachs will pay $5.1 billion to settle a U.S. probe into its handling of mortgage-backed securities involving allegations that loans weren't properly vetted before being sold to investors as high-quality bonds.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's experiments with selling credit risk to investors are a critical element of new plan to merge the two entities and move them out of conservatorship, but what form so-called credit risk transfers take could make a big difference.

The housing market has been improving but mortgage credit remains "stubbornly" tight on loans bought by the government-sponsored enterprises, according to a chief housing adviser at the White House.

According to the American Bankers Association's quarterly report on consumer delinquency trends, late payments on home-equity loans and home-equity lines of credit have dipped below 15-year averages for the first time since the Great Recession.

The majority of first-time homebuyers plan to skip the starter-home step and move straight into the home that would meet their long-term needs, according to the Homebuyer Insights Report from Bank of America.

GOP lawmakers and witnesses at a Senate Banking Committee hearing pointedly criticized the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday, setting the stage for a likely contentious hearing with the agency's director later in the week.

Third Federal Savings and Loan in Cleveland has long offered mortgage refinancing in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. Now it plans to offer purchase loans in those states.

JPMorgan Chase has agreed to sell its U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development mortgage origination business to Freedom Mortgage of Mount Laurel, N.J.

The government agency that guarantees securitizations of Federal Housing Administration-insured loans is testing a pool type that consists only of modified and reperforming loans.

Scammers pocketed $3.8 million from troubled homeowners nationwide and did nothing to modify their loans, according to the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Fannie Mae has unveiled a mortgage for borrowers who want to finance energy and water efficiency improvements to their homes.

Huntington Bancshares has partnered with the owner of the NBA's Detroit Pistons to provide $25 million in financial support in Flint, Mich., in response to the city's drinking water crisis.

Bankers are fighting back against a plan that would allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to invest in low-income housing tax credits, arguing they are critical for meeting Community Reinvestment Act requirements.

Five policy heavy-hitters issued a proposal this week to merge Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into a single government corporation as a way to move beyond the conservatorships of the two government-sponsored enterprises.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency appears poised finally to allow principal reductions, but it's been nearly a decade since the mortgage crisis and underwater borrowers are much fewer thanks to higher home values.