Regarding American Bankers Association President Frank Keating's "Regulators Have Created a Mortgage Minefield" (op-ed, June 27): Am I going crazy? Former bank regulators profiting from the regulations they imposed on the banks? If I understand Frank Keating's piece on the mortgage minefield that exists in banking today, Raj Date, the former deputy director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, wrote a large portion of the Qualified Mortgage guidelines for banks. Banks, fearing litigation, have now decided to loan only within the guidelines Raj Date helped to create.
Currently, after leaving his deputy director position, Mr. Date now runs Fenway Summer, a consumer finance firm, where he offers mortgages outside of the QM guidelines he designed. Guidelines he claims make it "just way too hard for good, responsible people to get good mortgages today."
Way to go, Raj! Regulate your future competitors, the banks, so that the consumer finance firm you run when you leave the government is the only game in town for those poor, responsible people who the banks must now reject because of the strict underwriting requirements you imposed on them. Motivated self-interest anyone?
Mary M. Glaser
Simsbury, Conn.