Mortgages

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.

Lenders that allow borrowers to shop for third-party settlement services face new liability, as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's integrated mortgage disclosure rules will let borrowers sue over problems with vendor lists.

Officials signaled that Hudson City Savings Bank's nearly $33 million settlement over redlining charges is only the first in what is likely to be a string of other cases.

Federal officials on Thursday ordered Hudson City Savings Bank to pay more than $27 million to resolve redlining allegations, the largest order of its kind and one that is likely to put larger banks on notice that redlining cases will be aggressively pursued.

Although new HMDA data shows no negative effects from CFPB mortgage rules that went into effect last year, industry representatives argue it isn't showing the full picture.

While Congress has been unable to pass housing finance reform, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have done a good job of adhering to some of the spirit of recent bipartisan legislation, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.

WASHINGTON — The number of mortgage originations dropped 31% to 6 million in 2014 due largely to a decline in refinancing as interest rates increased, according to a report issued Tuesday by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.

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.

Despite pledges last year to move "aggressively" to implement new credit scoring models at the government-sponsored enterprises, the Federal Housing Finance Agency's effort appears to have stalled.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a rule Monday that will make it easier for some community banks to make qualified mortgages.

Lenders and vendors found no bad surprises in the Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act integrated disclosure exam guidance, but it didn't clarify much industry confusion either.

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.

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.

The third quarter ends in two weeks, and top executives at Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and two regional banks are raising concerns about cost pressures, impediments to revenue growth and heightened lending risks.

License numbers for loan officers, real estate agents and settlement agents will be required on one of the new TILA-Respa integrated disclosure forms, raising questions about whether they could trigger investigations of possible illegal marketing services agreements.

The refinance mortgage market's unexpected resilience in 2015 has come as the result of a number of well-timed factors coalescing to create a welcomed surprise to lenders.

Evans Bancorp in Hamburg, N.Y., has agreed to pay $825,000 to settle a lawsuit that accused the company of mortgage redlining.

The rising costs to service mortgages reflects a market where there are not only downsides to being too small, but hurdles to being too large — raising the question of whether there's a middle ground where servicers are not too big, not too small, but just right.

Under a federal corruption probe and facing financial and performance issues, United Airlines has picked ex-KeyCorp CEO Henry Meyer as its new chairman. He'll have to draw on the crisis-management skills he sharpened while leading KeyCorp through the financial crisis.