Mandates and deadlines from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) continue to be mortgage lenders’ top concerns for the third year in a row, according to QuestSoft’s eighth annual compliance survey.
CFPB’s Qualified Mortgage rule commanded the greatest share of lenders’ compliance qualms, with 62.2% of the more than 500 lenders surveyed saying this is a high concern.
Other Bureau rulings, including Ability-to-Repay violations and the combined Truth in Lending and Good Faith Estimate disclosure forms also ranked as high concerns, with 57.2% and 54.8% of lenders.
CFPB-related rule making has captured the top spot in the survey every year since 2012, which was also the first survey year available following the creation of the regulatory body.
Compared to last year’s survey, lenders appear more weary than ever of the CFPB’s rules, as non-CFPB issues are seen as increasingly lower priorities, stated Leonard Ryan, founder and president of QuestSoft.
Discussion points for proposed Home Mortgage Disclosure Act changes (57.5% high concern) and other CFPB-related rules (47.7% high concern) both outscored any non-CFPB category in the QuestSoft survey.
“It seems the message of the survey is that for many lenders, the mortgage environment has become highly dependent on the box of lending that the CFPB rules are creating,” Ryan stated.
The survey also indicated lenders have a growing concern regarding vendor management, with QuestSoft experiencing a four-fold increase in the cost of processing compliance requests.
“The timeframe in between regulatory rule announcements and implementation dates simply doesn’t allow enough leeway for lenders to rework processes and implement new technologies in order to achieve compliance,” said Ryan. “Lenders will continue to seek counsel and integrate with venerable compliance providers, in efforts to prepare for audits and meet industry compliance standards.”
The Laguna Hill, California-based QuestSoft provides automated compliance software and services to the mortgage, banking and credit union industries.
The company’s customer satisfaction survey has been conducted using the same methodology after each year’s Home Mortgage Disclosure Act reporting deadline since 2007. This year’s survey was based on lender responses collected between March 4-13.
Written by Jason Oliva
