Mortgage Servicing Asset Capital Requirements Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. HILL. I thank the manager, my friend from Missouri.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1408, the Mortgage Servicing Asset Capital Requirements Act.

Mortgage servicing is a very valued product for our community banks. I am proud to represent several mortgage service firms connected to community banks in my State of Arkansas.

Having mortgage servicing assets connected with a residential lending portfolio adds value; it is incidental and important to banking; and, effectively, it is a proper hedge, a natural hedge for that residential lending business.

However, because of Basel III's capital requirements imposed on mortgage servicing organizations, many banks are being forced to sell their MSA portfolios to hedge funds or nonbanks, which don't really have the experience with the local customers in a personal, knowledgeable way like our community banks do.

MSAs are unique, as the gentleman from Missouri said, to the United States, but they are being regulated by

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rules developed by an international body without any study as to whether additional capital is even needed or any review on the impact of customer relationships.
In my view, while staying implementation of these capital requirements during a study, as provided in the original version of the bill, would be optimal, it is nonetheless imperative that the impacts of this rule be thoroughly analyzed, vetted, and understood.

I thank my friends, the gentlemen from Colorado and Missouri, for their work. I ask my colleagues to support this commonsense bill.

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