Mortgage Informer

Wall Street firms are loosening terms of their lending to mortgage-bond investors as markets heal, an RBS Securities Inc. executive said.

Repurchase agreement, or repo, lending against the debt has expanded so much since freezing in late 2008 that some banks now offer as much as 10-to-1 leverage and terms as long as one year on certain securities backed by prime jumbo-home loans, said Scott Eichel, the Royal Bank of Scotland unit’s global co-head of asset- and mortgage-backed securities.

“It’s getting very competitive,” Eichel said in a Jan. 14 interview at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. “We’re at the point where I don’t think we would feel comfortable if things go too much further.”

MANCHESTER, N.H. – A mortgage company that does business in New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts agreed to pay $425,000 as part of a settlement announced Monday with New Hampshire banking regulators.

The Mortgage Specialists, its president Michael Gill and compliance officer Lisa Tracy also agreed to submit to an independent review.

The state banking department accused the company of more than 60 violations, including forging signatures and destroying documents. Massachusetts banking officials also accused the company of unfair and deceptive business practices.

Last month, Gill admitted to paperwork mistakes. But he denied fraud was involved in any of the company’s 100,000 loans processed over 18 years of business.