The housing finance system is still dealing with the challenge of having too many Washington D.C. policymakers, David Stevens, president and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association said at the trade group’s National Mortgage Servicing Conference & Expo in Grapevine, Texas.
But not all regulators are preventing progress. Stevens praised the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau role in dealing with mortgage policy saying the agency’s final servicing rules show the agency considered feedback from the market.
Stevens statement comes after one of the MBA’s busiest months with the CFPB rolling out the qualified mortgage rule and national servicing guidelines, along with several other provisions in January.
As for what the CFPB got right, Stevens said the private right of action – or the leverage offered to consumers to sue under the national servicing standards – was “constrained” under the final servicing standards.
Furthermore, the small servicer exemption was expanded, although Stevens admitted “maybe not enough.”
The MBA CEO elaborated on this saying, “We have to deal with servicers that have smaller sub-servicers and have to decide who takes the risk in that construct.”
But Stevens, overall, was rather pleased with how the final CFPB’s final rules turned out.
“The rule was done pretty well,” Stevens said when discussing the new servicing standards. “It’s a recognition that the CFPB really listens and they got a lot right.”
