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Regulatory Requirements | 12 Months Ended
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Dec. 31, 2013
Brokers and Dealers [Abstract] |
Regulatory Requirements | Note 27 — Regulatory Requirements Our business is subject to extensive regulation by federal, state and local governmental authorities, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and various state agencies that license, audit and conduct examinations of our mortgage servicing, origination and collection activities. From time to time, we also receive requests from federal, state and local agencies for records, documents and information relating to our policies, procedures and practices regarding our mortgage servicing, origination and collection activities. In addition, the GSEs and their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA), Ginnie Mae, various investors, non-Agency securitization trustees and others also subject us to periodic reviews and audits. As a result of the current regulatory environment, we have faced and expect to continue to face increased regulatory and public scrutiny as well as stricter and more comprehensive regulation of our business. We continue to work diligently to assess and understand the implications of the regulatory environment in which we operate and the regulatory changes that we are facing. We devote substantial resources to regulatory compliance, while, at the same time, striving to meet the needs and expectations of our customers and clients. We must comply with a number of federal, state and local consumer protection laws including, among others, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, the Homeowners Protection Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act and, more recently, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) and state foreclosure laws. These statutes apply to loan origination, debt collection, use of credit reports, safeguarding of non−public personally identifiable information about our customers, foreclosure and claims handling, investment of and interest payments on escrow balances and escrow payment features, and mandate certain disclosures and notices to borrowers. These requirements can and do change as statutes and regulations are enacted, promulgated or amended. The recent trend among federal, state and local lawmakers and regulators has been toward increasing laws, regulations and investigative proceedings with regard to residential real estate lenders and servicers. On July 21, 2010, the Dodd-Frank Act was signed into law by President Obama. The Dodd-Frank Act constitutes a sweeping reform of the regulation and supervision of financial institutions, as well as the regulation of derivatives, capital market activities and consumer financial services. Many provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act must be implemented through rule making by the appropriate federal regulatory agency and will take effect over several years. The ultimate impact of the Dodd-Frank Act and its effects on our business will, therefore, not be fully known for an extended period of time. The Dodd-Frank Act is extensive and significant legislation that, among other things:
• | creates an inter-agency body that is responsible for monitoring the activities of the financial system and recommending a framework for substantially increased regulation of large interconnected financial services firms;
• | creates a liquidation framework for the resolution of certain bank holding companies and other large and interconnected nonbank financial companies;
• | strengthens the regulatory oversight of securities and capital markets activities by the SEC; and
• | creates the CFPB, a new federal entity responsible for regulating consumer financial services.
The CFPB directly affects the regulation of residential mortgage servicing in a number of ways. First, the CFPB has rule making authority with respect to many of the federal consumer protection laws applicable to mortgage servicers, including TILA and RESPA. Second, the CFPB has supervision, examination and enforcement authority over consumer financial products and services offered by certain non-depository institutions and large insured depository institutions. The CFPB’s jurisdiction includes those persons originating, brokering or servicing residential mortgage loans and those persons performing loan modification or foreclosure relief services in connection with such loans. Accordingly, we are subject to supervision, examination and enforcement by the CFPB. On January 17, 2013, the CFPB issued a set of new rules under the Dodd-Frank Act that will require mortgage servicers to (i) warn borrowers before any interest rate adjustments on their mortgages and provide alternatives for borrowers to consider, (ii) provide monthly mortgage statements that explicitly breakdown principal, interest, fees, escrow and due dates, (iii) provide options for avoiding lender-placed (or “forced-placed”) insurance, (iv) provide early outreach to borrowers in danger of default regarding options to avoid foreclosure, (v) provide that payments be credited to borrower accounts the day they are received, (vi) require that borrower account records be kept current, (vii) provide borrowers with increased accessibility to servicing staff and records and (viii) investigate errors within 30 days and improve staff accessibility to consumers, among other things. The new rules took effect on January 10, 2014 and have caused us to modify servicing processes and procedures and to incur additional costs in connection therewith. Title XIV of the Dodd-Frank Act contains the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act (Mortgage Act). The Mortgage Act imposes a number of additional requirements on servicers of residential mortgage loans, such as OLS, by amending certain existing provisions and adding new sections to TILA and RESPA. The penalties for noncompliance with TILA and RESPA are also significantly increased by the Mortgage Act and could lead to an increase in lawsuits against mortgage servicers. The Mortgage Act prevents servicers of residential mortgage loans from taking certain actions, including the following:
• | force-placing insurance, unless there is a reasonable belief that the borrower has failed to comply with a contractual requirement to maintain insurance;
• | charging a fee for responding to a valid qualified written request;
• | failing to take timely action to respond to the borrower’s request to correct errors related to payment, payoff amounts, or avoiding foreclosure;
• | failing to respond within ten (10) business days of a request from the borrower to provide contact information about the owner or assignee of loan; and
• | failing to return an escrow balance or provide a credit within twenty (20) business days of a residential mortgage loan being paid off by the borrower.
In addition to these restrictions, the Mortgage Act imposes certain new requirements and/or shortens the existing response time for servicers of residential mortgage loans. These new requirements include the following:
• | acknowledging receipt of a qualified written request under RESPA within five (5) business days and providing a final response within thirty (30) business days;
• | promptly crediting mortgage payments received from the borrower on the date of receipt except where payment does not conform to previously established requirements; and
• | sending an accurate payoff statement within a reasonable period of time but in no case more than seven (7) business days after receipt of a written request from the borrower.
We expect to continue to incur substantial ongoing operational and system costs in order to comply with these new laws and regulations. Furthermore, there may be additional federal or state laws enacted that place additional obligations on servicers and originators of residential mortgage loans. There are a number of foreign laws and regulations that are applicable to our operations in India, Uruguay and The Philippines, including acts that govern licensing, employment, safety, taxes, insurance and the laws and regulations that govern the creation, continuation and the winding up of companies as well as the relationships between shareholders, our corporate entities, the public and the government in these countries. Non-compliance with the laws and regulations of India, Uruguay or The Philippines could result in (i) restrictions on our operations in these counties, (ii) fines, penalties or sanctions or (iii) reputational damage. Capital Requirements Our Homeward, OLS and Liberty subsidiaries are licensed to originate and/or service forward and reverse mortgage loans in the jurisdictions in which they operate. The licensed entities are subject to minimum net worth requirements in connection with these licenses. These minimum net worth requirements are unique to each state and type of license. Failure to meet these minimum capital requirements can result in the initiation of certain mandatory actions by federal, state, and foreign agencies that could have a material effect on our results of operations and financial condition. The most restrictive of these requirements is based on the outstanding UPB of our owned and subserviced portfolio and was $862.8 million at December 31, 2013. Our licensed subsidiaries were in compliance with all of their capital requirements at December 31, 2013. Homeward, OLS and Liberty are also parties to seller/servicer agreements with one or more of the GSEs, FHA, VA and Ginnie Mae. These seller/servicer agreements contain financial covenants that include capital requirements related to tangible net worth, as defined in each agreement, as well as extensive requirements regarding servicing, selling and other matters. To the extent that these requirements are not met, the counterparty may, at its option, utilize a variety of remedies ranging from sanctions or suspension to termination of the seller/servicer agreements, which would prohibit future originations or securitizations of forward or reverse mortgage loans or being an approved seller/servicer. We were in compliance with these net worth requirements at December 31, 2013,

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