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United Wholesale Mortgage was a market leader twice over in 2023, according to initial vendor analyses of new Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released this week.While the read on modified Loan Application Register data can differ slightly based on the methodologies used by different companies, all of the 2023 reports this publication had reviewed at deadline put UWM at the top of the list in two categories.UWM led the field in loan units during 2023, unseating Rocket Mortgage in that category as overall origination numbers shrank, according to reports from Asurity, Polygon Research and Recursion. Polygon also confirmed that UWM held onto its lead in dollar volume last year.Overall, the industry record count of closed mortgages fell from over 8.39 million in 2022 to nearly 5.69 million last year, according to Asurity. The record count for applications was roughly 11.47 million, down from 16.08 million in 2022.While UWM maintained a comfortable lead in dollar volume in a challenging market last year, when it comes to unit market share there are indications Rocket Mortgage is still giving it a run for its money because when it comes to that metric, the two are not that far apart.Recursion finds HMDA numbers reported in the name of the former's parent (United Shore Financial Services) and the latter's original name (Quicken Loans) show UWM's share was 5.3%. Rocket's was 5.2%. Those numbers represent a marked change from 2022 when Rocket held a more significant lead in unit market share at 5.7% compared to UWM's 4.2%. These numbers show that not all of UWM's market share gain came from its heated rival.Another notable year-to-year change in the unit rankings was a steep drop at Loandepot, which exited wholesale in the second half of 2022. Both Polygon and Recursion had it ranked No. 3 in loan count for that year. For 2023, Polygon ranked it No. 10. Recursion's numbers suggest it slipped out of the top 10 altogether. Wells Fargo, which announced a departure from the correspondent channel early last year, and JPMorgan Chase also are no longer listed in the top 10 by either Polygon or Recursion.Ranked within the top 10 by both companies after UWM and Rocket are Bank of America, Fairway Independent, Crosscountry, U.S. Bank, Navy Federal Credit Union, Citizens and PNC Bank.In addition to different vendor methodologies, several caveats should be considered when reviewing modified LAR data as opposed to national numbers released later in the year, according to Polygon Research and the CFPB, the latter of which adjusts it for borrower privacy.Certain numbers associated with loan amounts and property values are roughly rounded and Polygon adjusts for the exclusion of certain fields not immediately available using published CFPB algorithms. Conforming loan amounts may be estimated due to the absence of fields.Other analyses based on the just-released 2023 HMDA were still pending at press time, including reviews of denial rates that are among data fields from the report used to review whether financial institutions may have engaged in discriminatory lending activity.

Integrated Financial Holdings in Raleigh, North Carolina, has agreed to sell itself to Capital Bancorp. Adobe Stock Capital Bancorp in Rockville, Maryland, has inked a $66 million deal to acquire Integrated Financial Holdings in Raleigh, North Carolina. The cash-and-stock transaction is part of a bid to grow Capital's commercial and government-guaranteed lending operations.The deal, slated to close in the second half of this year, would provide Capital with the $548 million-asset Integrated's Windsor Advantage, a Small Business Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture loan origination and servicing business. It has serviced more than $2 billion of loans.Integrated's "expertise originating and servicing USDA and SBA loans fits well with our strategic objectives and will allow us to serve a market with substantial need and growth potential," Ed Barry, CEO of the $2.2 billion-asset Capital, said in a release announcing the acquisition on Thursday.The seller is also the parent of West Town Bank & Trust, an Illinois state-chartered bank that operates in Greater Chicago.Integrated has been on the hunt for a buyer to gain scale and resources in order to further build out its national lending lines. It had inked a deal to sell to MVB Financial in Fairmont, West Virginia, but the companies called off that transaction last year in the aftermath of regional bank failures and heavy pressure on financial stocks.MVB had agreed to buy Integrated for $98 million in stock to accelerate the growth of its government-guaranteed lending business. But its shares slumped along with much of the sector last spring after the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in March and the collapse of First Republic Bank in May. The failures compounded challenges caused by inflation and spiking interest rates. When the deal was called off last May, MVB's shares were down more than 30% from early March, prior to the initial failures. The slump would have slashed the $98 million price tag roughly in half had it closed in the first half of last year as planned, given MVB was using its stock as currency to buy Integrated.In an interview at the time, MVB CEO Larry Mazza said the seller did not find the lower price palatable, and MVB also did not like the idea of effectively using its stock at a depressed price due to industry factors, not its own performance."The economics just didn't work," Mazza said.It was among several deals called off last year.Since then, however, bank stocks have recovered much of the ground they lost following the failures, and analysts anticipate more dealmaking ahead.Piper Sandler analysts said in a report Thursday that the failure fallout is largely behind the industry, though high interest rates remain a big "hindrance" to dealmaking. This is because they make it difficult to understand sellers' funding costs as well as credit quality, given that high rates drive up deposit expenses and create greater risk of floating-rate loan defaults. But, citing Federal Reserve commentary following policymakers' March meeting, the Piper analysts said banks now expect rate cuts in the second half of this year, and deal talks are picking up as a result.Integrated Chairman and CEO Marc McConnell said in the release that, by merging now with Capital, it will gain the heft needed to compete with larger lenders. "With a larger balance sheet and our combined lending and deposit-gathering capabilities, we believe that we can secure and grow our position as a leader in nationwide government guaranteed lending," he said.Capital said the deal was expected to produce 17% earnings per share accretion in 2025. It expects to earn back tangible book value dilution of 5% inside two years.As part of the deal, McConnell would join the board of Capital and its bank unit. Riddick Skinner, executive vice president of government-guaranteed lending at Integrated, would lead the same business line at Capital Bank. Mike Breckheimer, chief strategy officer at Integrated, would join Capital Bank as head of Windsor Advantage. Melissa Marsal, chief operating officer of Integrated, would also join Capital Bank in a leadership role.

California housing officials announced this week its pandemic-related Homeowner Assistance Fund was entering its final stage and encouraged homeowners to apply before the money runs out.The pending end to the pandemic-relief program marks the completion of a more-than-two-year effort to keep families from losing their homes as well as preserve their future opportunities to build wealth, state officials said. "As we draw nearer to the full disbursement of California's allocation of Homeowner Assistance Funds, eligible homeowners that act quickly can still take advantage of these resources," said Rebecca Franklin, president of the California Housing Finance Agency Homeowner Relief Corp., in a press release.Applications will be accepted and processed as long as funds remain available, the state said. The announcement made no mention of a final application deadline but emphasized urgency, with no guarantee that everyone eligible would be able to receive assistance. The state aimed much of its outreach toward at-risk populations after introducing the program in late 2021. Last year, California also updated criteria for assistance by opening it up to a broader range of income levels relative to local county medians, as well as to borrowers who may have previously received some form of loan modification. Reverse-mortgage holders also became eligible.   Qualified households facing financial challenges due to the Covid-19 pandemic can apply for a maximum of $80,000 in assistance to help with mortgage payments, property taxes or costs related to loan deferrals or partial claims."California's mortgage relief program has made a huge impact in underserved communities where families were in danger of losing their homes or hard-earned equity," said Stacey Tutt, the fund coordinator and senior staff attorney at the National Housing Law Project, in a press release.Approximately three-quarters of families receiving grants had income at 100% or below their county median. The overall statewide average for aid recipients thus far is 69% of area median income.Fifty-five percent went to households belonging to what the state considers socially disadvantaged communities. California received $1.1 billion in funding — more than any other jurisdiction — through the national Homeowner Assistance Fund, introduced to provide relief to U.S. households facing economic hardship during Covid-19. Launched thanks to provisions in the American Rescue Plan Act, almost $10 billion was made available across the country, with individual state and territory housing organizations responsible for administration and award. To date, the Golden State has provided grant assistance to 33,519 households, with an average disbursement of $24,555, according to agencies in charge of the program. Just over $823 million in total has been issued to its residents.   "The California mortgage relief program has achieved remarkable success by preserving homeownership opportunities which are so vital to ensuring our most vulnerable populations have a shot at building generational wealth," noted Tiena Johnson Hall, executive director of CalHFA, which oversees the state's efforts.  California's announcement comes after more than half of U.S. states have already sunsetted their HAFs upon exhausting their share of funding or else moved to place applicants on waitlists. Most recently, Oklahoma and New Hampshire closed application portals earlier in March.Pennsylvania, on the other hand, reopened its program after moving administration and disbursement procedures in- house, following issues it encountered with a third-party vendor last year.    

Mortgage rates moved down a bit this week, in line with the benchmark 10-year Treasury, as the markets continue to digest comments from Federal Reserve members.The 30-year fixed loan averaged 6.79% as of Thursday morning, down 8 basis points from the previous week's 6.87%, according to the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey. For the same period last year, the average was 6.32%.Meanwhile the 15-year FRM averaged 6.11%, down from last week when it averaged 6.21% and up from a year ago's average of 5.56%.At noon on Thursday, the 10-year yield was at 4.19%, down 8 basis points from its close seven days prior at 4.27%."Mortgage rates moved slightly lower this week, providing a bit more room in the budgets of some prospective homebuyers," said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac's chief economist, in a press release. "We also are seeing encouraging data on existing home sales, which reflects improving inventory."Data released on Thursday by Redfin showed a 15% increase in new listings for the four weeks ended March 24. That moved the number of homes for sale 6% higher.However, that same data, along with February's Purchase Application Payment Index report from the Mortgage Bankers Association, which also came out on Thursday, found consumers needing to shell out more each month for a home they recently bought."Regardless, rates remain elevated near 7% as markets watch for signs of cooling inflation, hoping that rates will come down further," Khater said.But it is not just the Federal Reserve's comments about its plans for short-term rates that is affecting the mortgage market. It is also the quantitative tightening program it initiated by letting its investment portfolio, including mortgage-backed securities, run-off, said George Calhoun, director of the Qualitative Finance Program and director of the Hanlon Financial Systems Center. He also serves as managing director of corporate relations for the Center for Research and Financial Technologies at the Stevens Institute of Technology.Rate increases and QT pursued different objectives for the Fed. "But they both affect the market, and they amplify one another and you can quantify the amplification to 1-to-1.5 percentage points [for] the 30 year above what it traditionally would have been relative to the Treasury rates and market," Calhoun said in an interview.Calhoun holds the effects of QT primarily responsible for the abnormally wide spreads."If my theory is correct, they won't narrow anytime soon," Calhoun continued. "I know I'm not sure what the triggering effect for them to be narrowing would be," especially because the Fed still has about $2.4 trillion of MBS on its balance sheet, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.Zillow's rate tracker was 6.41% as of noon Thursday, down 14 basis points from the prior week's average.The drop in rates was a result of the absence of new economic data and mixed messages from Federal Reserve officials, said Orphe Divounguy, senior macroeconomist at Zillow Home Loans, in a statement issued Wednesday night."A divide could be growing among Fed officials, with some expecting three, quarter-point interest rate cuts this year, and others forecasting fewer," Divounguy said. "Those forecasting more cuts are more confident that inflation is more firmly under control."But Divounguy warned that more volatility in mortgage rates is ahead as both the Fed and bond investors are looking for more conclusive evidence that inflation is low, predictable and stable in its movements.The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index is scheduled to be released Friday and that is the next event to drive mortgage rate repricing activity, Divounguy said.

The average monthly mortgage payment for a home purchase rose in recent weeks, even as the tight housing market shows signs of loosening.Payments increased 10% year-over-year to an all-time high of $2,721 for the four weeks ended March 24, Redfin said on Thursday morning.The Mortgage Bankers Association also released its February Purchase Applications Payment Index the same day, and found the median disbursement increased by $50 from January, to $2,184. That figure is a $123 increase from February 2023.The PAPI value increased 2.4% to 170.7 in February from 166.8 in January. For the same month last year, the index was 169.7, a 1.1% increase, with the year-over-year change attributed to a 4.8% rise in median income besides the 6% rise in payments.Rates sticking around the 7% range is a contributing factor, the MBA said."Challenging affordability conditions and low housing supply are keeping some prospective homebuyers on the sidelines this spring," said Edward Seiler, associate vice president, housing economics, and executive director of the Research Institute for Housing America, in a press release. "The eventual, expected decline in rates in the coming months will hopefully spur new activity in the housing market."However, Redfin pointed out that during the period, new listings were up 15% from the four weeks ended March 24, 2023, the most in nearly three years. The total number of homes is 6% higher, the biggest increase in approximately one year."High mortgage rates aren't deterring buyers as much as they were last year; a lot of people want to get in now before prices go up more," said Redfin agent Rachel Riva based in Miami, in a press release. "All of my recent listings have gone under contract in under 10 days, and most of them have received multiple offers."Buyers are dealing with elevated mortgage rates in a number of ways, Riva pointed out. "Some are making high down payments to lower their monthly payments, and some are willing to take on a high rate now in hopes of refinancing when and if rates come down."Median-priced single-family homes and condos remain less affordable in the first quarter compared with historical averages in more than 95% of U.S. counties that Attom Data Solutions had enough data to analyze.Meanwhile, major expenses on those homes were 32.3% of the average national wage in the first quarter, several points above common lending guidelines.As bad as that data sounds, it is actually a quarter-to-quarter improvement for both, although worse than one-year prior, Attom said.The portion of average wages nationwide required for typical mortgage payments including property taxes and insurance remains up almost 3 percentage points from one year ago and 11 points higher from early in 2021."The picture for home buyers is brightening a little again as affordability measures have improved for the second quarter in a row," said Rob Barber, Attom's CEO, in a press release.Even though the prospect of owning a home remains a financial stretch or even a pipe dream, for many households, with mortgage rates coming down from high points near 8% and home prices growing only by modest amounts, "it's gotten a bit easier for average wage earners to afford a home so far this year," Barber said. "The upcoming Spring buying season will say a lot about whether home prices remain stable enough for this trend to continue."In only 13 counties nationwide were home prices more affordable than the historical average, but even that needed to be taken with a grain of salt because two of those locales were New York County, also known as Manhattan, and San Francisco County, whose entirety is the city limits. Those are traditionally among the highest priced markets in the U.S.

Pending sales of previously-owned homes in the U.S. recovered last month after declining at the start of the year, adding to evidence that the housing market is gradually improving.An index of contract signings from the National Association of Realtors increased 1.6% to 75.6. The median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg saw the reading rise by 1.5%."While modest sales growth might not stir excitement, it shows slow and steady progress from the lows of late last year," NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement on Thursday.The nation's housing market has generally been on the upswing in recent months, pointing to a gradual acceptance of borrowing costs that are still double their levels at year-end 2021 but expected to decline at some point. A recent report showed listings may be starting to rise, with inventory reaching its highest level for a February since 2020.Many in the housing industry are waiting for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates following 11 hikes since spring 2022. However, some Fed officials have expressed a willingness to keep rates higher for longer to further bring down inflation. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic reiterated this week he expects just one rate cut this year and Fed Governor Christopher Waller said there was no rush to reduce rates.The pending-home sales report is a leading indicator of existing-home sales given houses typically go under contract a month or two before they're sold.The Midwest was the main driver of the increase in pending sales, with a 10.6% jump. Contract signings in the South, the nation's biggest housing market, edged up 1.1%. They were little changed in the Northeast and dropped in the West."The high-cost regions in the Northeast and West experienced pullbacks due to affordability challenges," Yun said.

In grade school, Sara Knochel already showed signs of turning into a future computer scientist thanks to a developing interest in math and languages.In the years since, Knochel has applied those skills in an effort to help deliver solutions to some of the thorniest problems the mortgage industry is confronting today. Her computer science degree led to an initial job at Loanperformance, which was later acquired by Corelogic, and eventually to her current leadership role at Candor Technology. But in between, Knochel earned an MBA, which drove her to other opportunities in financial services, where she saw how data analytics could be used in tracking loan performance across various segments. The expertise initially brought her to Alpharetta, Georgia-based Candor as a consultant in 2018, and today, she serves as both chief operating officer and chief of staff.Knochel spoke with National Mortgage News recently to discuss how the wealth of data the industry has today can be used to help mortgage lenders make accurate and bias-free decisions, while also addressing concerns the industry might have with trust in technology.The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Daniel Tarullo, former governor of the Federal Reserve, was one of several authors on a paper that proposes new liquidity requirements for large banks.Michael Nagle/Bloomberg Revised liquidity standards are the key to preventing future bank runs like the one that toppled Silicon Valley Bank last year, according to a paper by former Federal Reserve officials.Former Fed Govs. Dan Tarullo and Jeremy Stein are among the co-authors of a paper released late Wednesday that explores last year's bank failures and the evolution of the banking sector in recent decades. In it, they call for lowering the asset threshold at which banks are subject to the full liquidity coverage ratio — which requires banks to maintain enough high-quality liquid assets to withstand 30 days of significant deposit outflows — from $250 billion to $100 billion. They also say banks should be required to have enough assets pledged as collateral to the Fed's last-resort lending facility to offset uninsured deposits. "The concept is that the liquidity situation of the bank would be substantially enhanced, precisely because it had ready access to the discount window, collateral that was pre-positioned, and thus the Fed was in a position to provide the liquidity immediately to a bank, should it suffer a run on its deposits," said Tarullo, who served as the Fed's top regulatory official after the subprime lending crisis and through the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act.The suggestion comes as regulators in Washington prepare to put forth their own liquidity reforms at some point this year. Fed Chair Jerome Powell and Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr have stated that liquidity reforms are in the works, while acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu has already floated a set of potential changes: mandatory asset pre-positioning at the Fed's discount window and a five-delay liquidity requirement for certain banks.The new paper, titled "The Evolution of Banking in the 21st Century: Evidence and Regulatory Implications," explores the implications of two potential sets of reforms: expanding insurance coverage to all deposits in the banking system and requiring banks to have full liquidity coverage capabilities. The paper was compiled for the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, a semiannual conference hosted by the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.In the paper, the Harvard-based research team — which also includes Samuel G. Hanson, Victoria Ivashina, Laura Nicolae and Adi Sunderam — noted that broad expansion of deposit insurance, aside from being politically nonviable, would also present "moral hazard" by incentivizing distressed banks to take on greater risks. But, the report notes, the matter is complicated by the fact that banks' deposit bases are growing at a faster rate than their ability to deploy funds into new loans. Stein said this is driven by several factors including the Fed's own balance-sheet expansion and a preference for higher balances by depositors, as well as greater competition from nonbank lenders."It's not like people have great lending opportunities and are raising deposits for them," Stein said. "Rather, they have a lot of deposits incoming, and if you have too many deposits, it outstrips your natural loan opportunities, and the rest ends up in securities … mostly longer-term treasuries and mortgages."The challenge in expanding liquidity requirements, the researchers note, is tilting banks more toward amassing securities and away from making loans. Tarullo said the solution lies in the treatment of high-quality liquid assets, or HQLA, within the liquidity coverage ratio, or LCR, as well as the collateral that banks can pledge to the discount window. He urges regulators to "harmonize treatment of collateral for LCR HQLA purposes with what's required for the backing of uninsured deposits."The paper does not call for a dollar-for-dollar match of pre-positioned assets at the Fed's discount window to deposits beyond the $250,000 deposit insurance cap. Tarullo said he and his co-authors did not suggest a specific ratio because they felt they lacked the necessary information about deposits in the banking system to make such a determination.But, he noted, that the suggested framework could go a long way toward reducing the stigma associated with discount window borrowing, a factor that regulatory officials and financial scholars say has long dissuaded banks from turning to the lending facility until it is too late. He said the framework would complement the current effort by Fed officials to encourage discount window readiness."My expectation is that [our proposal] would almost inevitably reduce the stigma associated with it, precisely because [the discount window is] incorporated into the regulatory system and wasn't just available as a kind of lender of last resort," Tarullo said. "I don't know that will get you all the way, but I think in combination with the hortatory efforts of the Board of Governors, the kind of thing that we're talking about should move us further in that direction."Stein added that the discount window does not need to cure all the issues facing troubled banks to be an effective tool."I don't think we're necessarily under the illusion that all problems can be solved with discount window lending," he said. "But, even for a bank that is ultimately going to fail, having it happen in a slightly more orderly fashion and say, the discount window can buy you a week or 10 days … to have the failure happened in a more orderly way, maybe you're able to find somebody to sell the bank to rather than having to invoke a systemic risk exemption. That alone is a virtue."

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of the Treasury released a report on AI and cybersecurity, providing an overview of the cybersecurity risks that AI poses for banks and methods for managing them and emphasizing the divide between large and small banks in their ability to detect fraud.The report discusses the inadequacies in financial institutions' ability to manage AI risk — namely, not specifically addressing AI risks in their risk management frameworks — and how this trend has held financial institutions back from adopting expansive use of emerging AI technologies.AI is redefining cybersecurity and fraud in the financial services sector, according to Nellie Liang, under secretary for domestic finance, which is why — at the direction of President Joe Biden's October executive order on AI security — Treasury authored the report."Treasury's AI report builds on our successful public-private partnership for secure cloud adoption and lays out a clear vision for how financial institutions can safely map out their business lines and disrupt rapidly evolving AI-driven fraud," Liang said in a press release.The report is based on 42 in-depth interviews with representatives from banks of all sizes; financial sector trade associations; cybersecurity and anti-fraud service providers that include AI features in their products and services; and others.Among the top-line conclusions drawn in the report, Treasury found that "many financial institution representatives" believe their existing practices align with the National Institute of Standards and Technology AI Risk Management Framework, which was released in January 2023. But, those participants also ran into challenges establishing practical and enterprisewide policies and controls for emerging technologies like generative AI — specifically, large language models."Discussion participants noted that while their risk management programs should map and measure the distinctive risks presented by technologies such as large language models, these technologies are new and can be challenging to evaluate, benchmark, and assess in terms of their cybersecurity," the report reads.By this virtue, the report suggests expanding the NIST AI risk framework "to include more substantive information related to AI governance, particularly as it pertains to the financial sector." This is exactly how NIST upgraded its cybersecurity risk management framework last month."Treasury will assist NIST's U.S. AI Safety Institute to establish a financial sector-specific working group under the new AI consortium construct with the goal of extending the AI Risk Management Framework toward a financial sector-specific profile," the report reads.On the subject of banks' cautious approach to large language models, interviewees for the report said these models are "still developing, currently very costly to implement, and very difficult to validate for high-assurance applications," which is why most firms have opted for "low-risk, high-return use cases, such as code-generating assistant tools for imminent deployment."The Treasury report indicates that some small institutions are not using large language models at all for now, and the financial firms that are using them are not using public APIs to use them. Rather, where banks are using these models, it is via an "enterprise solution deployed in their own virtual cloud network, tenant, or multi-tenant" deployments.In other words, to the extent possible, banks are keeping their data private from AI companies.Banks are also investing in technologies that can yield greater confidence in the outputs their AI products yield. For example, the report briefly discusses the retrieval-augmented generation, or RAG, method, an advanced approach to deploying large language models that several institutions reported using.RAG enables firms to search and generate text based on their own documents in a manner that reliably avoids hallucinations — i.e., text generation that is totally fabricated and false — and minimizes the degree to which outdated training data can poison LLM responses.The report covers many other additional topics, including the need for firms across the financial sector to develop standardized strategies for managing AI-related risk, the need for adequate staffing and training to implement advancing AI technologies, the need for risk-based regulations on the financial sector and how banks can counteract adversarial AI."It is imperative for all stakeholders across the financial sector to adeptly navigate this terrain, armed with a comprehensive understanding of AI's capabilities and inherent risks, to safeguard institutions, their systems, and their clients and customers effectively," the report concludes.

Go Mortgage is settling a federal lawsuit against its former director of capital markets after accusing her of causing millions of dollars in damages in acts of corporate espionage. The lender will pay Katie Chikonde an undisclosed amount to also settle her separate wage claims against the firm in a state court, according to her attorney. The ex-employee was accused of, among other actions, defaming Go Mortgage to counterparties and bungling its loan pipeline hedging."Go Mortgage has nothing but respect for Katie Chikonde's hard work and valuable contributions to the company and our industry, as well as her integrity, professionalism, and character," wrote Gary Kramer of Colorado Springs-based Gary Kramer Law, on behalf of Chikonde in a statement Wednesday.The lender and an attorney for the company didn't respond to requests for comment Wednesday afternoon. Chikonde, who Kramer said voluntarily resigned from Go Mortgage in July 2022, is listed as vice president and director of capital markets at Michigan-based Dart Bank since August 2022. Chikonde caused Fannie Mae to temporarily suspend Go Mortgage's seller-service number, preventing it from delivering loans, according to the complaint filed last July. She also allegedly shared false information about Go Mortgage with its investors and warehouse lenders.The lawsuit in Ohio federal court also accused Chikonde of entering false information in Optimal Blue that wasn't discovered for four months. Her purported sabotage stemmed from dissatisfaction over the nonpayment of a bonus in 2021, according to case filings. Chikonde filed a wage claim lawsuit against Go Mortgage in February 2023 in Arapahoe County District Court, southeast of Denver. The dollar amounts in dispute in both cases weren't publicly available; the federal case docket shows a damage demand in excess of $75,000. The sides met for mediation in January, and first revealed their global settlement in a Feb. 29 status update. Go Mortgage originated over $1.1 billion in mortgage loan volume last year through December, according to data from S&P Global. The lender counts 98 sponsored mortgage loan officers as of December 31, according to consumer Nationwide Multistate Licensing System records, and 26 active branches.