Archive

In a recent blog I reported my belief that work on the financial reform bill would be completed by the July 4 holiday. But obviously I was wrong. Congress did get some work done before the holiday. They renamed the bill the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. They also fought a battle over funding. The bill would have resulted in $18 billion in new fees on large banks. Some in the Senate […]

Regrettably, the most overt forms of discrimination persist; those incidents that we should read about in history books still manage to find their way onto the front pages of our newspapers. We still see cross-burnings across the nation’s heartland. We still see hate-fueled violence carried out in our biggest cities and in our smallest towns. We just recently read of a justice of the peace in Louisiana who saw it as his prerogative to refuse […]

Fannie Mae has developed a new Uniform Residential Loan Application form (Fannie Mae Form 1003 – revised 6/09). Use of the new form is required for applications taken on or after July 1, 2010. Among other changes the new form now includes the Loan Originator Identifier and the Loan Origination Company Identifier. Banks should use the new form, but these two new fields of information are not required by banks at the present time. (See […]

The Secure and Fair Enforcement for Mortgage Licensing Act of 2008 (S.A.F.E. Act) became law on July 30, 2008. It requires the licensing of all non-bank mortgage loan originators (MLOs). It also requires a national registry of all MLOs (both bank and non-bank). The licensing and registration of non-bank MLOs has been unfolding during the past two years. Registration of bank MLOs is still in flux. STATUS What is the status of the requirement for […]

Horrendous floods recently ravaged Nashville, Tennessee. I am spending the day explaining the details of the National Flood Insurance Act and related laws and regulations to a group of Tennessee bankers.