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The Echoes Between Student Loans and Mortgages

By Karen Weise on October 16, 2012

    Earlier this year, the country’s largest mortgage servicers agreed to reform their practices and pony up $25 billion in a multistate settlement to atone for faulty foreclosures. A new report out Tuesday from the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says the companies that manage student loans have many similar problems that haunted mortgage servicers.

    The CFPB’s private student loan ombudsman, Rohit Chopra, wrote the report based on nearly 3,000 borrower complaints and says he found an “uncanny” parallel to mortgages. Ninety-five percent of the complaints collected by the CFPB focused on problems triggered when students interact with servicers, which collect monthly payments on behalf of investors who own the loan. Chopra said borrowers often face surprises, runarounds, and dead ends – payments that aren’t properly applied, information that’s conflicting, and servicers unwilling or unresponsive to borrowers looking to create payment plans.

    “I see these complaints in our report serving as an early warning,” Chopra said in a call with reporters, explaining that the CFPB and others should make sure student loan servicing isn’t a “redux” of mortgage loan servicing.

    Chopra also provided a glimpse of how the CFPB handles the problems that borrowers report. Of the 2,857 complaints Chopra’s office has received, 961 people got an explanation or resolution from the servicer, and 387 people received some sort of relief, be it nonmonetary (like a new payment plan) or direct compensation, Chopra told me. For borrowers who received monetary relief, the median amount was $1,572, though one borrower received nearly $84,000. Chopra says getting compensation is rare because the loans themselves don’t allow for much flexibly. “Even if [repayment options aren’t] something that’s in the terms of the note, there are still issues that people are facing,” he said. He hopes that by airing the grievances, reforms might help borrowers in the future.

    Chopra says regulators and the Department of Education should investigate whether the problems he found in the complaints were systemic—and if so, should consider stronger oversight. He also thinks policymakers should find ways to encourage modifications and develop a market for refinancing student loans. But perhaps Chopra’s simplest recommendation was to get more students to learn about, and participate in, the income-based repayment program that’s already available on federal student loans. After all, as the country’s experience working with mortgages has taught us, working with government loans is a lot easier than reforming the private market.

(http://www.businessweek.com. Adapted)

Leia o texto para responder à questão

The Echoes Between Student Loans and Mortgages

By Karen Weise on October 16, 2012

    Earlier this year, the country’s largest mortgage servicers agreed to reform their practices and pony up $25 billion in a multistate settlement to atone for faulty foreclosures. A new report out Tuesday from the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says the companies that manage student loans have many similar problems that haunted mortgage servicers.

    The CFPB’s private student loan ombudsman, Rohit Chopra, wrote the report based on nearly 3,000 borrower complaints and says he found an “uncanny” parallel to mortgages. Ninety-five percent of the complaints collected by the CFPB focused on problems triggered when students interact with servicers, which collect monthly payments on behalf of investors who own the loan. Chopra said borrowers often face surprises, runarounds, and dead ends – payments that aren’t properly applied, information that’s conflicting, and servicers unwilling or unresponsive to borrowers looking to create payment plans.

    “I see these complaints in our report serving as an early warning,” Chopra said in a call with reporters, explaining that the CFPB and others should make sure student loan servicing isn’t a “redux” of mortgage loan servicing.

    Chopra also provided a glimpse of how the CFPB handles the problems that borrowers report. Of the 2,857 complaints Chopra’s office has received, 961 people got an explanation or resolution from the servicer, and 387 people received some sort of relief, be it nonmonetary (like a new payment plan) or direct compensation, Chopra told me. For borrowers who received monetary relief, the median amount was $1,572, though one borrower received nearly $84,000. Chopra says getting compensation is rare because the loans themselves don’t allow for much flexibly. “Even if [repayment options aren’t] something that’s in the terms of the note, there are still issues that people are facing,” he said. He hopes that by airing the grievances, reforms might help borrowers in the future.

    Chopra says regulators and the Department of Education should investigate whether the problems he found in the complaints were systemic—and if so, should consider stronger oversight. He also thinks policymakers should find ways to encourage modifications and develop a market for refinancing student loans. But perhaps Chopra’s simplest recommendation was to get more students to learn about, and participate in, the income-based repayment program that’s already available on federal student loans. After all, as the country’s experience working with mortgages has taught us, working with government loans is a lot easier than reforming the private market.

(http://www.businessweek.com. Adapted)

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Money Talks

    Is money a good medium to spread messages? At first Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition activist and noted blogger, was skeptical. But then he did the maths: if 5,000 Russians stamped 100 bills each, every citizen would encounter at least one of the altered notes as they passed from person to person.

    Members of Iran’s Green Movement used this tactic in 2009, writing slogans on banknotes during their antigovernment protests. This prompted a ruling that defaced notes would no longer be accepted by banks. Similarly, supporters of the Occupy movement had added slogans and infographics about income inequality to dollar bills. And members of China’s Falun Gong movement wrote messages on banknotes attacking government persecution.

    The use of money as a communications medium, distributing words and images as it passes from hand to hand, is ancient. The earliest coins, minted in Lydia (now part of Turkey) in the 7^th century BC, depicted the head of a lion, thought to have been a royal symbol. Later rulers had their names and images inscribed on coins, along with symbolic images of various kinds. In the era before printing, this was a very efficient way to project their image directly to the people.

    But their subjects were also aware of the messaging power of money, as the recently revamped exhibit on the history of money at the British Museum in London reveals. It includes a Roman coin from 215 AD, on which the Christian “chi-rho” symbol has been scratched behind the emperor’s head; a French coin from 1855 overstamped with an advertisement for Pear Soap; and a 1903 British penny on which Edward VII’s face has been stamped with “Votes for women” by suffragettes. Mr. Navalny’s call for Russians to stamp messages on banknotes is just the latest incarnation of a centuries-old idea – a pioneering example of what we now call social media.

(The Economist, September 29^th 2012, p. 80. Adapted)

Leia o texto para responder à questão

Money Talks

    Is money a good medium to spread messages? At first Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition activist and noted blogger, was skeptical. But then he did the maths: if 5,000 Russians stamped 100 bills each, every citizen would encounter at least one of the altered notes as they passed from person to person.

    Members of Iran’s Green Movement used this tactic in 2009, writing slogans on banknotes during their antigovernment protests. This prompted a ruling that defaced notes would no longer be accepted by banks. Similarly, supporters of the Occupy movement had added slogans and infographics about income inequality to dollar bills. And members of China’s Falun Gong movement wrote messages on banknotes attacking government persecution.

    The use of money as a communications medium, distributing words and images as it passes from hand to hand, is ancient. The earliest coins, minted in Lydia (now part of Turkey) in the 7^th century BC, depicted the head of a lion, thought to have been a royal symbol. Later rulers had their names and images inscribed on coins, along with symbolic images of various kinds. In the era before printing, this was a very efficient way to project their image directly to the people.

    But their subjects were also aware of the messaging power of money, as the recently revamped exhibit on the history of money at the British Museum in London reveals. It includes a Roman coin from 215 AD, on which the Christian “chi-rho” symbol has been scratched behind the emperor’s head; a French coin from 1855 overstamped with an advertisement for Pear Soap; and a 1903 British penny on which Edward VII’s face has been stamped with “Votes for women” by suffragettes. Mr. Navalny’s call for Russians to stamp messages on banknotes is just the latest incarnation of a centuries-old idea – a pioneering example of what we now call social media.

(The Economist, September 29^th 2012, p. 80. Adapted)

Leia o texto para responder à questão

Money Talks

    Is money a good medium to spread messages? At first Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition activist and noted blogger, was skeptical. But then he did the maths: if 5,000 Russians stamped 100 bills each, every citizen would encounter at least one of the altered notes as they passed from person to person.

    Members of Iran’s Green Movement used this tactic in 2009, writing slogans on banknotes during their antigovernment protests. This prompted a ruling that defaced notes would no longer be accepted by banks. Similarly, supporters of the Occupy movement had added slogans and infographics about income inequality to dollar bills. And members of China’s Falun Gong movement wrote messages on banknotes attacking government persecution.

    The use of money as a communications medium, distributing words and images as it passes from hand to hand, is ancient. The earliest coins, minted in Lydia (now part of Turkey) in the 7^th century BC, depicted the head of a lion, thought to have been a royal symbol. Later rulers had their names and images inscribed on coins, along with symbolic images of various kinds. In the era before printing, this was a very efficient way to project their image directly to the people.

    But their subjects were also aware of the messaging power of money, as the recently revamped exhibit on the history of money at the British Museum in London reveals. It includes a Roman coin from 215 AD, on which the Christian “chi-rho” symbol has been scratched behind the emperor’s head; a French coin from 1855 overstamped with an advertisement for Pear Soap; and a 1903 British penny on which Edward VII’s face has been stamped with “Votes for women” by suffragettes. Mr. Navalny’s call for Russians to stamp messages on banknotes is just the latest incarnation of a centuries-old idea – a pioneering example of what we now call social media.

(The Economist, September 29^th 2012, p. 80. Adapted)

Leia o texto para responder à questão

Money Talks

    Is money a good medium to spread messages? At first Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition activist and noted blogger, was skeptical. But then he did the maths: if 5,000 Russians stamped 100 bills each, every citizen would encounter at least one of the altered notes as they passed from person to person.

    Members of Iran’s Green Movement used this tactic in 2009, writing slogans on banknotes during their antigovernment protests. This prompted a ruling that defaced notes would no longer be accepted by banks. Similarly, supporters of the Occupy movement had added slogans and infographics about income inequality to dollar bills. And members of China’s Falun Gong movement wrote messages on banknotes attacking government persecution.

    The use of money as a communications medium, distributing words and images as it passes from hand to hand, is ancient. The earliest coins, minted in Lydia (now part of Turkey) in the 7^th century BC, depicted the head of a lion, thought to have been a royal symbol. Later rulers had their names and images inscribed on coins, along with symbolic images of various kinds. In the era before printing, this was a very efficient way to project their image directly to the people.

    But their subjects were also aware of the messaging power of money, as the recently revamped exhibit on the history of money at the British Museum in London reveals. It includes a Roman coin from 215 AD, on which the Christian “chi-rho” symbol has been scratched behind the emperor’s head; a French coin from 1855 overstamped with an advertisement for Pear Soap; and a 1903 British penny on which Edward VII’s face has been stamped with “Votes for women” by suffragettes. Mr. Navalny’s call for Russians to stamp messages on banknotes is just the latest incarnation of a centuries-old idea – a pioneering example of what we now call social media.

(The Economist, September 29^th 2012, p. 80. Adapted)