Mortgage Registry Now Includes all States, Federal Lenders

The State Regulatory Registry, LLC (SRR) and the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System (NMLS) have issued an Annual Report for 2011. The report notes that 2011 was the first year that all state mortgage regulatory agencies utilized NMLS to manage mortgage loan originator (MLO) licenses on the system.  In addition, in January the NMLS Federal Registry became fully operational.  By the end of the year the Federal Registry contained active registrations for 11,081 institutions and 375,654 registered MLOs.

According to the report, for the first time almost all of the nearly half-million individual mortgage loan originators (MLOs) along with their license or registration status and other information are now available to the general public on-line through NMLS Consumer Access. 

By the end of 2011 NMLS had registered 17,121 companies holding 22,124 active state licenses.  There were 11,081 depository institutions and subsidiaries registered, and 116,991 individual MLOs holding 226,010 active state licenses in addition to the federally registered MLOs noted above.

Licensing and registration trends show that the number of active companies, institutions and MLOs in NMLS gradually increased throughout 2011 but decreased significantly in January 2011 and January 2012 as entities surrendered or failed to renew by the year-end deadline.  The number of MLO state licenses reached a high of 226,023 on December 31, 2011 but had declined 18.4 percent to 184,345 licenses by the end of January 2012.

As shown in the table below, institutions and MLOs in the Federal Registry represent institutions regulated by five federal entities and a few privately insured credit unions.

The report says that under state supervision, loan origination is still very much a local small business activity.  The vast majority of MLOs, 90,000 or 77 percent, operate in a single state; 13,300 are operating under two state agencies.  Less than 7,000 are operating in more than two states but 3,100 of those are operating in 11 or more jurisdictions.

Companies within the state-supervised mortgage industry conduct a wide range of activities and most employ only a small number of MLOs.  Here is a breakdown of company activities among state-licensed companies.