Joint Release: Agencies Announce Threshold for Smaller Loan Exemption from Appraisal Requirements for Higher-Priced Mortgage Loans
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) today announced that the threshold for exempting loans from special appraisal requirements for higher-priced mortgage loans during 2018 will increase from $25,500 to $26,000. The threshold amount will be effective January 1,…
Federal Reserve: Speech | Where Do Consumers Fit in the FinTech Stack?
Where Do Consumers Fit in the Fintech Stack? Governor Lael Brainard The new generation of fintech tools offers the potential to help consumers manage their increasingly complicated financial lives, but also poses risks that will need to be managed as the marketplace matures.1 In many ways, the new generation of fintech tools can be seen…
Federal Reserve: New Members of Community Advisory Council Announced
The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday announced five new members of its Community Advisory Council (CAC). The CAC is composed of a diverse group of experts and representatives of consumer, workforce, and community development organizations and interests, including from such fields as affordable housing, economic development, labor, small business, and asset and wealth building. CAC…
Federal Reserve: FEDS Notes | The Unequal Distribution of Economic Education
The Unequal Distribution of Economic Education: A Report on the Race, Ethnicity, and Gender of Economics Majors at US Colleges and Universities Amanda Bayer and David Wilcox Abstract: The distribution of economic education among US college graduates is quite unequal: female and underrepresented minority undergraduates, collectively, major in economics at 0.36 the rate that white,…
Federal Reserve: Speech | Financial Innovation: A World in Transition
We live in a world defined by the rapid pace of technological change. Four of the five largest U.S. companies by market capitalization are classified as “technology companies,” where the term describes the products that these companies sell and how they operate. Thanks to decades of investment in information technology, especially in electronic communication networks,…
Joint Release: Designated Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Key Data Fields
From Federal Reserve Board release: The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) have revised the list of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) key data fields that their respective examiners will use in connection with validating the accuracy…
Joint Release: Agencies Issue Temporary Exceptions to Appraisal Requirements in Areas Affected by Recent Hurricanes
Responding to widespread damage caused by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, four federal financial institution regulatory agencies today took action to facilitate the recovery process by temporarily easing appraisal requirements for real estate-related financial transactions in areas declared to be a major disaster. The agencies will not require financial institutions to obtain appraisals for affected…
Federal Reserve: FEDS Notes | Natural Disasters and the Measurement of Industrial Production: Hurricane Harvey, a Case Study
Kimberly Bayard, Ryan Decker, and Charles Gilbert The Federal Reserve’s G.17 release on industrial production (IP) and capacity utilization published on September 15, 2017, included one of the first estimates of the impact on a specific measure of economic activity by Hurricane Harvey, which made landfall in Texas on August 25. As reported in the…