Key U.S. senator proposes company to buy mortgages
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The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee is working on a plan to set up a company to buy distressed home loans at currently discounted values and help fund new mortgages.
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Countrywide Financial Corp , the largest U.S. mortgage lender, on Tuesday offered to refinance or restructure up to $16 billion of adjustable-rate mortgages through the end of 2008.
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The top Republican on the U.S. House Financial Services Committee on Thursday introduced legislation that would create a national registry and set new standards for mortgage originators in response to the subprime mortgage crisis.
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The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee unveiled legislation on Wednesday that would prohibit mortgage brokers and lenders from steering borrowers to high-cost loans.
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The chairman of the banking  committee of the Senate will on Wednesday afternoon unveil a  comprehensive plan to reform mortgage lending, sources familiar  with the plan said.
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Mortgage company raises financing using mortgages as collateral.
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Bank of America Corp , the second-largest U.S. bank, is in advanced talks to buy Countrywide Financial Corp , the largest U.S. mortgage lender, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
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Treasury chief is looking for a financial instrument to help homeowners facing foreclosure.
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Fannie Mae, the nation&#39;s largest source for home mortgage financing, said Wednesday that is is considering two placements of up to $4 billion in preferred stock to qualified institutional buyers.
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Financial companies were under scrutiny Friday after Sen. John Kerry vowed to push for legislation that would curb credit card fees and protect homebuyers from unfair lending practices.
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(InfoWorld) - A plan to have private investors build a national wireless broadband network for police and fire departments met resistance at a U.S. Senate hearing Thursday, including from the man in charge of New York's emergency broadband network. Startup Frontline Wireless, backed by two former U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)Â chairmen and several tech industry heavyweights, would set aside 22MHz of wireless spectrum from an upcoming auction of the 700MHz band for a dual-use commercial and emergency response network with the winning bidder required to build a nationwide network that would give priority to police and fire departments. A national broadband network for emergency response agencies would take billions of dollars to build, and a public-private partnership like the one Frontline has proposed is the only way it will happen, said James Barksdale, president and CEO of investment group Barksdale Management and a partner in Frontline. The U.S. government lacks the money to build the network, he said. "We're not asking agencies to give us the spectrum," Barksdale said. "And public safety gets a free ride on it -- that's a heck of a deal." Six years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. and two years after Hurricane Katrina, emergency response agencies across the U.S. still do not have broadband networks that allow agencies to talk to each other, said Barksdale, former CEO of Netscape. "The FCC can achieve, at no cost to taxpayers, an interoperable public safety network that, I submit to you, will never be built if we don't do it this way," Barksdale told the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. "We are long past the time to talk about what might happen or should happen or is going to happen for public safety. Any serious proposal must address how this costly network will be funded and built without relying on government funds." But several people at the hearing, including Paul Cosgrave, commissioner of the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, questioned the Frontline plan. New York has already built a $500 million emergency network that will roll out fully in early 2008, and the Frontline proposal could take away local control of emergency communications networks, he said. Spectrum that's optimal to use for emergency communications in New York may not work for Boise, Idaho, he said. "A national network, based on a one-size-fits-all approach, may not meet the disparate communication needs of emergency responders throughout the country," Cosgrave said. In addition, if emergency responders must share spectrum with commercial providers, the network may be jammed during disasters, Cosgrave said. The proposed network will be "dominated by commercial interests, and deployment and maintenance will be undertaken based on return on investment rather than effective emergency response," he added. The Frontline plan would take 10MHz from 60MHz scheduled to be auctioned by early next year and pair it with 12MHz of spectrum out of 24MHz set aside for public safety. The 84MHz of spectrum is becoming available after Congress voted early last year to require U.S. television stations to abandon the spectrum and move from analog to all-digital broadcasts. The deadline for the transition to digital TV is in February 2009. Under the Frontline plan, the winner of the auction for the 22MHz would be required to build a national broadband network, estimated by Barksdale to cost $12 billion. The network operator could then collect wholesale fees from emergency response agencies and from commercial telecoms that want to use the spectrum to provide broadband services. Frontline is also asking the FCC to create rules that would require the winner of the 22MHz chunk of spectrum to resell access to any customer that can pay. Several consumer groups and tech companies have also called for open access provisions for part of the auctioned spectrum, saying it represents the best chance for a new national broadband provider that would compete with cable and telecom company offerings. The FCC is expected to set service rules on the spectrum to be auctioned within weeks. Representatives of two wireless carriers told the committee they oppose open access rules in the auction. Dick Lynch, executive vice president and CTO at Verizon, suggested open access and net neutrality rules called for by several groups would limit the appeal of the spectrum and drive down the cost the U.S. government receives in the auction. The auction is expected to raise at least $10 billion with many observers suggesting much more money will be bid. "The auction must make the spectrum available in ways that will promote, not cripple, broadband deployment," Lynch said. [Open access and other] requirements are unwarranted, would deter innovation, and would not benefit consumers." Senator Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, also questioned the Frontline plan, saying the proposal doesn't address how local police and fire departments will pay for handsets and other equipment used to access the network. The best way to raise money for public safety equipment is to maximize the value of the spectrum at auction, he said. "There's no reason this [spectrum] shouldn't go into the private sector and be profitable, too," he said. Several Democratic senators and Wanda McCarley, president of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International, were more receptive of the Frontline plan. The proposal includes many ideas that many emergency response officials want, McCarley said. "With this auction we stand at a crossroads," added Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat. "Either we can provide extraordinary benefits to millions of Americans, or we can tilt the broadband policy to improve the already significant position of the powerful few that deliver this service. I think there's a clear path that we have to take -- the airwaves belong to the American people."
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The banking industry is proposing to  members of the U.S. Congress and the White House that some of  the risk of troubled mortgages should be shifted to the federal  government, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal on  Thursday.
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Investor's Business Daily - Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke wrote Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., saying he does not think caps on investment limits for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac need to be lifted. Schumer and other lawmakers had argued that easing lending restrictions to let such government-sponsored enterprises offer more mortgages could help calm markets.
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Bank of America Corp, the second-largest U.S. bank, is in advanced talks to buy Countrywide Financial Corp, the largest U.S. mortgage lender, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
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A senior Democrat said yesterday that if Congress tried to raise taxes on U S private equity firms and hedge funds, it must do the same with other partnerships involving oil, real estate, and venture capital.
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The top Republican on the U.S. House  Financial Services Committee on Thursday introduced legislation  that would create a national registry and set new standards for  mortgage originators in response to the subprime mortgage  crisis.
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U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry said he would expand the low-income housing focus of mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but would preserve their government-sponsored status.