We welcome the overall thrust of the Federal Reserve Board regulation to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive home mortgage lending practices.

The American Bankers Association (ABA) strongly supports the rule’s application of a uniform standard to all financial firms that make mortgage loans, including non-federally regulated lenders. ABA believes that its members are already adhering to the loan origination, underwriting and servicing standards that protect mortgage customers and the bank.

We are pleased that the Federal Reserve recognized that the proposed trigger designating a high-cost loan would intrude on the prime loan market. The Fed agreed to use a market-based survey, as ABA recommended. However, we continue to analyze the trigger level to determine whether it strikes the right balance between protecting vulnerable borrowers and ensuring that prime loans are not unnecessarily restrained.

ABA supports the rule’s crackdown on deceptive advertising of mortgage rates and features.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 at 11:00 am and is filed under Politics .