WASHINGTON, D.C. – June 6, 2012 – (RealEstateRama) — The Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) released today its 2012 first quarter reports on state-licensed mortgage companies, branches, and individual mortgage loan originators (MLOs) in NMLS and on registered institutions and MLOs in the NMLS Federal Registry.
Together the two reports provide for the first time a 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 these data, state and federal regulators and public policy makers are now able to identify the types and geographic footprints of entities originating mortgages, as well as gain insight into trends and overall industry capacity.
The NMLS State-Licensed report compiles data from the first quarter of 2012 concerning companies, branches, and MLOs who are state-licensed through NMLS. The NMLS Federal Registry report compiles data from the first quarter of 2012 concerning MLOs who work for an insured depository, or its owned and controlled subsidiary, that is regulated by a federal banking agency, or for an institution regulated by the Farm Credit Administration. Data from the NMLS State-Licensed report continues to show that most state-licensed mortgage entities are local, small businesses.
Highlights from the Q1 2012 NMLS State-Licensed Report include:
- There were 15,883 companies licensed through NMLS, up 6 percent from Q1 2011;
- Mortgage loan originators totaled 105,595, an increase of 5.5 percent from Q1 2011;
- The total number of licenses held by companies increased 12 percent from Q1 2011 to 31,686 and;
- The number of total licenses held by MLOs increased by 13 percent from Q1 2011 to 207,187.
The 2012 Q1 NMLS State-licensed Report is available here.
Data from the NMLS Federal Registry report show that a large majority of registered institutions are community-based institutions with a presence in just one or two states and employ less than 10 MLOs. The NMLS Federal Registry report data also reveal that while federally chartered banks represent 17 percent of all institutions registered in NMLS, these institutions employ more than half of all registered MLOs in NMLS.
Highlights from the NMLS Federal Registry Report include:
- 94 percent of institutions have MLOs registered in two or fewer states;
- Only 11 institutions have registered MLOs in 30 or more states;
- The top five federal registered institutions employ more than 130,000 mortgage loan originators; more than one third of all registered MLOs and;
- Federally chartered institutions represent 17 percent of all institutions in the NMLS Federal Registry and employ 59 percent of registered MLOs.
The 2012 Q1 NMLS Federal Registry Report is available here.
Media Contacts:
Catherine Woody, Senior Director of Communications, 
Rockhelle Johnson, Manager of Communications, 
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. Five state agencies do not currently manage company licenses in NMLS: DE, ME, MO, TX-OCCC and UT-DFI.
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 5,400 state?chartered financial institutions. Further, the majority of state banking departments also regulates 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.
