The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) issued two relatively welcome surprises yesterday. First, along with ditching a debt-to-income ratio (“DTI”) ceiling, the agency expanded its proposed general Qualified Mortgage (“QM”) to include loans up to 2.25 percentage points over the average prime offer rate. Mortgage lenders can opt in to the new QM as early as 60 days after the rule is published (so, likely by late February 2021), although compliance becomes mandatory July 1,…

In this Winter 2020 edition of our Structured Finance Bulletin, we provide updates on recent legal and regulatory developments in the consumer loan space as well asthe latest on the transition from LIBOR. We also analyze the Federal Housing Agencies and GSE updates to COVID-19 relief measures for mortgage loan borrowers and US M&A considerations for Fintech Businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, we review recent Volcker Rule revisions and developments in the EU Securitisation Regulation…

Should US state nonbank mortgage servicers be subject to “safety and soundness” standards of the type imposed by federal law on insured depository institutions, even though the nonbanks do not solicit and hold customer funds in federally insured deposit accounts or pose a direct risk of a government bailout? Well, state mortgage banking regulators think so. On September 29, 2020, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, an organization made up of state regulators, released proposed…

Financial Statement Disclosure of Supply Chain and other Trade Payables Programs Trade payables programs have in recent years increased greatly in popularity among both large and small companies. While originally the sole domain of the large global banks and firmly based on a fairly straightforward reverse factoring model, these programs are now offered by banks and many non-bank market participants using a variety of structures and funding sources. As we discussed in our post on…

On Friday, October 9, 2020, the US Internal Revenue Service released Revenue Procedure 2020-44 (the “Revenue Procedure”), providing retroactive but limited relief for amending specific types of legacy contracts to add fallback mechanics for LIBOR or other IBORs. The fallback language included must rather strictly follow select model contract language recommended by the Alternative Reference Rate Committee (the “ARRC”) and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (“ISDA”). The only permissible deviations from the prescribed ARRC…

In what we understand to be the first state law to do so, California’s Assembly Bill 913 (AB913), which was enrolled on September 4, 2020, amends Section 850 of the Public Utilities Code to allow electrical corporations to apply for a required financing order from the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) to use securitization to recover verified incremental undercollections in calendar year 20201 through authorized fixed recovery charges. AB913 notes that securitization is a…

On 3 September 2020, two regulations were published regarding the detailed disclosure requirements under the Securitisation Regulation (the “Disclosure Technical Standards“). These consist of regulatory technical standards concerning the information and the details of a securitisation to be made available (the “Disclosure RTS“), and implementing technical standards with regard to the standardised templates (the “Disclosure ITS“).  The Disclosure Technical Standards will enter into force 20 days after publication, i.e. on 23 September 2020. Read the…