RMBS

The Supreme Court of the State of New York held a hearing on the $8.5 billion Countrywide Financial Corp. settlement case this afternoon.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged credit rating agency Egan-Jones Ratings Co. (EJR) and its owner and president Sean Egan for material misrepresentations and omissions in their July 2008 application to register as a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization (NRSRO) for ABS and government securities issuers.

Standard & Poor's reported Tuesday morning that home prices fell in February for the sixth consecutive month to the lowest level since 2002.

The past is coming back to haunt former Fannie Mae chief executive James A. Johnson.

A $20 billion package of residential mortgage servicing rights being offered by Bank of America has yet to trade even though the bidding ended about two weeks ago, according to investment bankers familiar with the deal.

Don Curtis, vice president of business development for Carrrington Mortgage Services, Santa Ana, Calif., has left the company.

Sterling covered bond volume has been quite high beginning in 2012. Public placement volumes are already more than the levels seen in any previous year, Moody's Investors Service said in a new special comment published today.

The mortgage industry will be saddled with high legal costs if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) provides a low bar for attorneys to challenge a lender’s adherence to the bureau’s “ability to repay” underwriting standards, according to the Consumer Mortgage Coalition (CMC),which represents some of the nation’s largest banks.

Raj Date, the deputy director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), said the agency wants to avoid creating "disincentives" for mortgage lenders and banks as part of the qualified mortgage (QM) rule.Date also assured consumer and civil rights groups that access to credit is a "priority" for the agency and there will be "real consequences" for mortgage lenders that do not properly assess a borrower's ability to repay a loan.

Whole Loan Capital (WLC), New York, is in the market with a $4.8 billion 'flow' servicing deal that will be sourced through a handful of different lenders.