by Calculated Risk on 2/16/2011 06:20:00 PM

From Cheyenne Hopkins at American Banker: Regulators to Hit Largest Mortgage Servicers with Enforcement Orders; Fines Likely

Alarmed by significant deficiencies uncovered as part of a regulatory review of mortgage servicer practices, the federal banking agencies are preparing formal enforcement actions against the largest servicing firms ...

The enforcement orders are expected to hit most, and possibly all, of the 14 mortgage servicers reviewed by regulators after foreclosure problems surfaced in the press last year, but the largest firms — including Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., and Ally Financial Inc. — are likely to face the toughest requirements ...

The orders are expected to be coupled with a global settlement with other government entities investigating the servicing industry, which is almost certain to include civil money penalties.
...
Several banks had initially expected the enforcement orders to come as early as this week, but that timeline appears to be slipping. Sources indicated regulators are shooting to issue the orders, along with the global settlement, sometime in March.

This is the result of the review that Fed Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin discussed last Friday:

Late last year, the federal banking agencies began a targeted review of loan servicing practices at large financial institutions that had significant market concentrations in mortgage servicing. The preliminary results from this review indicate that widespread weaknesses exist in the servicing industry. The agencies intend to report more specific findings to the public soon, but I can tell you that these deficiencies pose significant risk to mortgage servicing and foreclosure processes, impair the functioning of mortgage markets, and diminish overall accountability to homeowners.

I'm sure this has been said, but I'll say it again because I have seen little to no evidence of improvement in the operational performance of servicers since the onset of the crisis in 2007

I hope the fines are commensurate with the size of the "deficiencies".