March 31, 2015
Tuesday’s Regulatory and Legislative Round-Up
- On March 26th the The House Financial Services Committee approved 11 bipartisan bills designed to help strengthen the economy and consumer choice by “relieving community banks and credit unions from some of the harmful regulatory burden imposed by Washington,” these include:
- Capital Access for Small Community Financial Institutions Act – which allows privately insured state chartered credit unions to apply for membership in the Federal Home Loan Bank System.
- Community Institution Mortgage Relief Act – which mitigates the high cost of regulatory compliance by amending the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act to direct the CFPB to provide exemptions from the mortgage escrow account requirements of Dodd-Frank and for small servicers that annually service 20,000 or fewer mortgage loans.
- Helping Expand Lending Practices in Rural Communities Act – which provides an appeals process for areas to be designated as rural for the purpose of exempting certain loans from the CFPB’s Qualified Mortgage rule.
- Mortgage Choice Act – which rovides clarity to the calculation of points and fees, allowing more loans to qualify as Qualified Mortgages and increasing options for borrowers.
- Mortgage Servicing Capital Asset Capital Requirements Act – Directs federal banking agencies to conduct a study to determine the appropriate capital requirements for mortgage servicing assets for community financial institutions.
