Washington, D.C. – July 31, 2013 – (RealEstateRama) — The Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) released today its 2013 first quarter reports on state-licensed and federally registered mortgage entities in NMLS.
The NMLS State-License report compiles data from the first quarter of 2013 concerning companies, branches, and mortgage loan originators (MLOs) who are state-licensed through NMLS. Nationally aggregated data from the NMLS State-License report shows that most state-licensed mortgage entities are local, small businesses operating in one state. But a further look at the data shows that in most states, licensee population is more evenly distributed among small companies and multi-state operators.
“When looking at the data from a macro-level, one sees that the total number of state-licensed companies declined slightly over the last year, but the number of licenses held by these companies increased,” said Bill Matthews, CSBS Executive Vice President and President of the State Regulatory Registry LLC (SRR), the subsidiary of CSBS that operates NMLS on behalf of state regulators. “This is due, in part, to changes in state laws and a nationwide system such as NMLS that makes it easier for companies and mortgage loan originators to operate in multiple states.”
The NMLS State-License report also includes for the first time 2012 loan origination activity for state-licensed companies. According to Mortgage Call Report data submitted in NMLS, state-licensed companies originated 3.3 million loans in 2012 totaling $764 billion. Conventional loans accounted for 74 percent of loan types and 68 percent were refinance loans.
Additional highlights from the Q1 2013 NMLS State-License report include:
• There were 15,842 companies licensed through NMLS, a slight decline of 0.2 percent from 15,883 in Q1 of 2012;
• The total number of licenses held by companies increased 3.5 percent from Q1 2012 to 32,797;
• Mortgage loan originators totaled 112,970, an increase of seven percent from Q1 2012; and
• The number of total licenses held by MLOs increased by 22 percent from Q1 2012 to 252,555.
The NMLS Federal Registry report, also released today, compiles data from the first quarter of 2013 concerning MLOs who work for an insured depository or its subsidiary or for an institution regulated by the Farm Credit Administration.
Data from the NMLS Federal Registry report show that while 87 percent of registered institutions are community-based institutions with a presence in just one state, 10 institutions originate mortgages in 30 or more states.
Highlights from the Q1 2013 NMLS Federal Registry report include:
• 87 percent of institutions have MLOs registered in one state;
• Only 10 institutions have registered MLOs in 30 or more states;
• The top five federal registered institutions each employ more than 10,000 MLOs; and
• Federally chartered institutions represent 16 percent of all institutions in the NMLS Federal Registry and employ 58 percent of registered MLOs.
Together the two reports provide the most comprehensive tally of all individuals, residential mortgage companies, and depository institutions authorized under the SAFE Act to originate mortgages in the U.S. These reports provide a baseline understanding of the entities active in mortgage origination. With this data, state and federal regulators and public policymakers are able to identify the types and geographic footprints of entities originating mortgages, as well as gain insight into trends and overall industry capacity.
Media Contacts:
Catherine Woody, Senior Director of Communications, 
Rockhelle Johnson, Manager of Communications, 
The Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) is the nationwide organization of banking regulators from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. State banking regulators supervise approximately 5,250 state?chartered financial institutions. Further, most state banking departments also regulate a variety of non-bank financial services providers, including mortgage lenders. For more than a century, CSBS has given state supervisors a national forum to coordinate supervision of their regulated entities and to develop regulatory policy. CSBS also provides training to state banking and financial regulators and represents its members before Congress and the federal financial regulatory agencies.
A subsidiary of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS), the State Regulatory Registry LLC (SRR) is a non-profit entity that operates the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry (NMLS) on behalf of state financial services regulatory agencies. SRR is governed by an eight-member Board of Managers comprised of state banking and financial regulators and a representative of the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators (AARMR). The SRR Board of Managers is responsible for all development, operations, and policy matters concerning NMLS.
The Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry (NMLS) is a web-based system that allows state-licensed non-depository companies, branches, and individuals in the mortgage, consumer lending, money services businesses, and debt collection industries to apply for, amend, update, or renew a license online for all participating state agencies using a single set of uniform applications. Mortgage loan originators employed by insured depository institutions are also registered through NMLS. NMLS brings greater uniformity and transparency to these non-depository financial services industries while maintaining and strengthening the ability of state regulators to monitor these industries and protect their citizens. NMLS began operation on January 2, 2008. All individual mortgage loan originators are represented in the system.
