Mortgages and Consumer Lending

51 year old Jeff McGrue has been found guilty in a US federal court in relation to a fraud that promised home owners facing repossession that he could arrange a Treasury bond-backed scheme that would save their homes. He lied. And then he defrauded them out of ownership of their homes and additional money.

RoundPoint Financial Group started its Christmas party early when it confirmed on 23 December that it had taken a slice of the RBS Financial Products Inc loan portfolio. But while they may be happy, some others may be wondering what's going on.

There's a lot to ask questions about in the deal Wells Fargo has done with California's Attorney General. It's costing them more than USD2,000 million but they didn't write the business. And it's looking remarkably like a scam with the banking sector as the victim.

The United Kingdom's Office of Fair Trading has imposed specific requirements on MBNA, a specialist in high-risk credit card borrowing.

Quite why the Internet Crime Complaint Centre (IC3) is involved in combating a telephone scam is unclear. But as a part of the FBI, its warning is prescient.

Australia's NAB says that it is to help Australian borrowers by becoming "the first major bank to remove some of its existing mortgage fees." The changes affect NAB and Homeside mortgage products.

On 24 November 2010 the Federal Deposit Indemnity Corporation issued "final guidance, which reaffirms existing supervisory expectations with respect to overdraft payment programs generally and provides specific guidance with respect to automated overdraft payment programs."

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has today issued a circular to all banks requiring them to take certain steps to strengthen risk management in their residential mortgage lending business. Hong Kong property prices have increased by approximately 50% since the beginning of 2009 and the IMF has recently issued a warning that there are signs of a bubble which, if it bursts, could have very serious consequences.

Peter and Anne Byas fell into arrears on the mortgage of their home in Dublin, Ireland. Their lender, the Educational Building Society, issued proceedings to repossess the property and recover the 37,000 euro arrears. A country court registrar (junior judge) granted the order with a six months' stay. But the couple appealed and a Country Court Judge has granted them leave to apply for judicial review of the order. Their argument is that the making of a repossession order is in breach of the Irish constitution and the EU Convention on Human Rights. There are potentially serious ramifications for financial institutions.

Average mortgage rates dipped following last week's Federal Reserve decision, according to the LendingTree Weekly Mortgage Rate Pulse, a snapshot of the lowest and average mortgage rates available within the LendingTree network of lenders.