Mortgage, Financial Institution | featured news

Citigroup Inc said quarterly profit plunged on a $4.7 billion write-down of its stake in a brokerage operated by Morgan Stanley, but mortgage lending increased and capital markets results rebounded.

It is an open secret in the banking world: the interest rates for many mortgages and loans are based on a benchmark that is largely guesswork. The flaws in the rate-setting process, which is used to determine the pricing for trillions of dollars of financial products, have been exposed by the latest banking scandal. Regulators around the world are investigating whether big banks gamed the rates for their own benefit before and after the financial crisis.

Wells Fargo's profit jumped 13 percent in the first three months of the year, thanks to strong mortgage lending and a drop in delinquent loans, the bank said Friday.

The federal regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said it would eliminate performance-based bonuses for senior executives at the two mortgage-finance firms.

Bank of America made $2 billion in the last three months of last year, reversing a loss from a year earlier. It offset legal expenses over mortgages and losses in its investment...

Federal Housing Finance Agency is seeking billions in repayment from banks that sold bad loans to the mortgage giants to help offset taxpayer losses, but some financial institutions are balking.

Morgan Stanley shares dropped Wednesday following a report that the investment bank is facing an investigation into mortgage derivative deals.