US BANCORP

U.S. Bancorp is an American diversified financial services holding company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the parent company of U.S. Bank National Association, the seventh largest bank in the United States based on $416.0 billion in assets (as of September 30, 2015 per official FDIC data) and fourth largest in the US in total branches

U.S. Bank ranks as the fifth largest bank in the U.S. based on deposits, with $263.7B in deposits as of June 30, 2014. U.S. Bank's branch network serves 25 Midwestern and Western states with 3,151 banking offices and 5,001 ATMs.[citation needed] U.S. Bancorp offers regional consumer and business banking and wealth management services, national wholesale and trust services and global payments services to over 15.8 million customers. The company employs over 65,000 people, and services consumers ranging from investment services, credit cards, loans, and generalized banking

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U.S. Bank was formed during the 1990s through the acquisitions of several major regional banks in the West and Midwest. Those banks, in turn, had grown from the mergers of numerous smaller banks throughout the years. Since 1988 U.S. Bank has acquired or merged with over 50 banks. The U.S. Bank name first appeared as United States National Bank of Portland, established in Portland, Oregon in 1891; it changed its name to the United States National Bank of Oregon in 1964. In 1902, it merged with Ainsworth National Bank of Portland, but kept the U.S. National Bank name. The decision turned out to be advantageous for the bank, as a 1913 federal law prohibited other banks from using “United States” in their names from that time forward. U.S. National was among the first banks to form a bank holding company — called U.S. Bancorp, on September 9, 1968The central part of the franchise dates from 1864, with the formation of First National Bank of Minneapolis. In 1929, that bank merged with First National Bank of St. Paul (also formed in 1864) and several smaller Upper Midwest banks to form the First Bank Stock Corporation, which changed its name to First Bank System in 1968.

In the eastern part of the franchise, Farmers and Millers Bank in Milwaukee opened its doors in 1853, growing into the First National Bank of Milwaukee and eventually becoming First Wisconsin and ultimately Firstar. In Cincinnati, First National Bank of Cincinnati opened for business in 1863 under National Charter the charter that U.S. Bancorp still operates under today, and one of the oldest active national bank charters in the nation. Despite having started up in the midst of the Civil War, First National Bank of Cincinnati would go on to survive many decades to grow into Star Bank.

These banks thrived as independent entities. As opportunities arose, each participated in in-market mergers and acquisitions during the early decades of the 20th century and in more widespread expansions during the 1980s and 1990s — including the 1993 transaction that brought Colorado National Bank in Denver into the First Bank System, and West One Bancorp of Boise, Idaho, coming into the original U.S. Bancorp in 1995..

In 1997, U.S. Bancorp merged into First Bank System. Although First Bank System was the surviving company and corporate headquarters stayed in Minneapolis, the merged bank took the U.S. Bancorp name.In the following years, U.S. Bancorp expanded into California by acquiring several small institutions.

In 1999, Firstar merged with Star Bank, and acquired Mercantile five months later. The present-day company was formed when Firstar bought U.S. Bancorp, a deal which closed on February 27, 2001. While Firstar was the surviving company, it changed its name to U.S. Bancorp and moved its headquarters to Minneapolis.

On December 13, 2001, two business lines of Firstar switched to the U.S. Bancorp name, the first name changes after the Firstar/U.S. Bancorp merger.

US Bank in Hudson, Ohio

On November 14, 2008, U.S. Bancorp received $6,599,000,000 from the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act in the form of a preferred stock and related warrants. On November 21, 2008 U.S. Bank purchased Downey Savings & Loan Assn FA from Downey Financial Corp and Pomona First Fed Bk & Tr (PFF) from PFF Bancorp Inc. (CA). At year-end 2008, U.S. Bancorp had total assets of $266 billion, and U.S. Bank was the 6th-largest commercial bank within the United States. On June 17, 2009, U.S. Bancorp redeemed the $6.6 billion of preferred stock and on July 15, 2009, it completed the purchase of a warrant held by the U.S. Treasury Department. This effectively concluded U.S. Bancorp’s participation in the Capital Purchase Program. It was among the first banks to repay the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds.

Sofi Finance

Sofi Social Finance, Inc. (commonly known as SoFi) is a marketplace lender that provides student loan refinancing, mortgages and other types of loans, such as parent and personal loans. The company is a non-bank alternative focused on offering loans at lower rates than traditional lenders. SoFi’s primary customers are early stage professionals. Some of its products, such as parent loans and mortgages, are popular with a broader demographic.

SoFi was founded in 2011 by Mike Cagney, Dan Macklin, James Finnigan, and Ian Brady, four students who met at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. By leveraging the interest fellow alumni have in seeing graduates of their alma mater be successful, the founders hoped SoFi could provide more affordable options for those taking on debt to fund their education. The company’s inaugural loan program was a $2 million pilot at the founders’ alma mater – the Stanford Graduate School of Business. For this pilot, 40 alumni invested an average of $50,000 to 100 students.

In September 2012, SoFi raised $77.2 million, led by Baseline Ventures, with participation from DCM and Renren.

Mark Cuban passed up on investing in the company.

On October 2, 2013, SoFi announced that it had raised $500 million in debt and equity to fund and refinance student loans. This total funding amount came from $90 million in equity, $151 million in debt, and $200 million in bank participations, with the remaining capital from alumni and community investors.As of September 2013, SoFi had funded $200 million in loans to 2500 borrowers at the company’s 100 eligible schools.In November 2013, SoFi announced a deal with Barclays and Morgan Stanley to create a bond backed by peer-to-peer student loans, and this would create the first securitization of these loans to receive a credit rating.

In April 2014, SoFi raised $80 million in a Series C round led by Discovery Capital Management with participation from Peter Thiel, Wicklow Capital, and existing investors. Money was raised to expand the footprint of the company's student loan refinancing business and to extend into new products like mortgages and personal loans

In February 2015, the company announced a $200 million funding round led by Third Point Management. That same month, the company officially began offering personal loans.

By April, 2015, the company had funded more than $2 billion in loans, including student loan refinancing, mortgages, personal loans and MBA loans. To celebrate its $2 billion milestone, SoFi announced a contest, #2BillionTogether, to pay off one of its members student loans.

In September, 2015, Former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt was added as an advisor. The firm also raised a $1 billion round of investment from Softbank and said it had funded $4 billion in loans

SoFi originally utilized an alumni-funded lending model that connected students and recent graduates with alumni and institutional investors via school specific student loan funds. Investors received a financial return and borrowers received rates lower than the federal government offered. The company sought to minimize defaults by focusing on low-risk students and graduates.

As SoFi’s product offerings expanded to include mortgages, mortgage refinancing and personal loans, the company moved away from an alumni-funded model to a non-traditional underwriting approach focused on lending to financially responsible individuals. In early 2016, SoFi discontinued using FICO credit score as part of the underwriting process for all of its products.Instead, SoFi says it analyzes forward-looking factors to determine a prospective borrower’s future potential and ability to repay.

In addition to competitive interest rates, SoFi offers 'community' benefits to its borrowers such as career services and startup mentoring.

Mortgage Insurance

Mortgage Insurance (also known as mortgage guarantee and home-loan insurance) is an insurance policy which compensates lenders or investors for losses due to the default of a mortgage loan. Mortgage insurance can be either public or private depending upon the insurer. The policy is also known as a mortgage indemnity guarantee (MIG), particularly in the UK.

Private Mortgage Insurance

Private mortgage insurance, or PMI, is typically required with most conventional (non government backed) mortgage programs when the down payment or equity position is less than 20% of the property value. In other words, if you're purchasing or refinancing a home with a conventional mortgage, if the loan-to-value (LTV) is greater than 80% (meaning you have less than a 20% equity position), it's a good bet you'll be required to carry private mortgage insurance.

PMI rates can range from 0.32% to 1.20% of the principal balance per year based on percent of the loan insured, LTV, a fixed or variable interest rate structure, and credit score.[1] The rates may be paid in a single lump sum, annually, monthly, or in some combination of the two (split premiums). Most people pay PMI in 12 monthly installments as part of the mortgage payment.

In the United States, PMI payments by the borrower were tax-deductible until 2010.

Borrower paid private mortgage insurance, or BPMI, is the most common type of PMI in today's mortgage lending marketplace. BPMI allows borrowers to obtain a mortgage without having to provide 20% down payment, by covering the lender for the added risk of a high loan-to-value (LTV) mortgage. The US Homeowners Protection Act of 1998 allows for borrowers to request PMI cancellation when the amount owed is reduced to a certain level. The Act requires cancellation of borrower-paid mortgage insurance when a certain date is reached. This date is when the loan is scheduled to reach 78% of the original appraised value or sales price is reached, whichever is less, based on the original amortization schedule for fixed-rate loans and the current amortization schedule for adjustable-rate mortgages. BPMI can, under certain circumstances, be cancelled earlier by the servicer ordering a new appraisal showing that the loan balance is less than 80% of the home's value due to appreciation. This generally requires at least two years of on-time payments. Each investor's LTV requirements for PMI cancellation differ based on the age of the loan and current or original occupancy of the home. While the Act applies only to single family primary residences at closing, the investors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac allow mortgage servicers to follow the same rules for secondary residences. Investment properties typically require lower LTVs.

There is a growing trend for BPMI to be used with the Fannie Mae 3% downpayment program. In some cases, the Lender is giving the borrower a credit to cover the cost of BPMI.

Lender Paid Private Mortgage Insurance: Lender paid private mortgage insurance, or LPMI, is similar to BPMI except that it is paid by the lender and built into the interest rate of the mortgage. LPMI is usually a feature of loans that claim not to require Mortgage Insurance for high LTV loans. The advantage of LPMI is that the total monthly mortgage payment is often lower than a comparable loan with BPMI, but because it's built into the interest rate, you can't get rid of it when you reach an 20% equity position without refinancing.Mortgage insurance began in the United States in the 1880s, and the first law on it was passed in New York in 1904. The industry grew in response to the 1920s real estate bubble and was "entirely bankrupted" after the Great Depression. By 1933, no private mortgage insurance companies existed. The bankruptcy was related to the industry's involvement in "mortgage pools", an early practice similar to mortgage securitization. The federal government began insuring mortgages in 1934 through the Federal Housing Administration and Veteran's Administration, but after the Great Depression no private mortgage insurance was authorized in the United States until 1956, when Wisconsin passed a law allowing the first post-Depression insurer, Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation, to be chartered. This was followed by a California law in 1961 which would become the standard for other states' mortgage insurance laws. Eventually the National Association of Insurance Commissioners created a model law.

Mortgage Loan

A mortgage loan, also referred to as a mortgage, is used by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate; by existing property owners to raise funds for any purpose while putting a lien on the property being mortgaged. The loan is "secured" on the borrower's property. This means that a legal mechanism is put in place which allows the lender to take possession and sell the secured property ("foreclosure" or "repossession") to pay off the loan in the event that the borrower defaults on the loan or otherwise fails to abide by its terms. The word mortgage is derived from a "Law French" term used by English lawyers in the Middle Ages meaning "death pledge", and refers to the pledge ending (dying) when either the obligation is fulfilled or the property is taken through foreclosure. Mortgage can also be described as "a borrower giving consideration in the form of a collateral for a benefit (loan).

Mortgage borrowers can be individuals mortgaging their home or they can be businesses mortgaging commercial property (for example, their own business premises, residential property let to tenants or an investment portfolio). The lender will typically be a financial institution, such as a bank, credit union or building society, depending on the country concerned, and the loan arrangements can be made either directly or indirectly through intermediaries. Features of mortgage loans such as the size of the loan, maturity of the loan, interest rate, method of paying off the loan, and other characteristics can vary considerably. The lender's rights over the secured property take priority over the borrower's other creditors which means that if the borrower becomes bankrupt or insolvent, the other creditors will only be repaid the debts owed to them from a sale of the secured property if the mortgage lender is repaid in full first.

In many jurisdictions, though not all (Bali, Indonesia being one exception, it is normal for home purchases to be funded by a mortgage loan. Few individuals have enough savings or liquid funds to enable them to purchase property outright. In countries where the demand for home ownership is highest, strong domestic markets for mortgages have developed.

Basic concepts and legal regulation

According to Anglo-American property law, a mortgage occurs when an owner (usually of a fee simple interest in realty) pledges his or her interest (right to the property) as security or collateral for a loan. Therefore, a mortgage is an encumbrance (limitation) on the right to the property just as an easement would be, but because most mortgages occur as a condition for new loan money, the word mortgage has become the generic term for a loan secured by such real property. As with other types of loans, mortgages have an interest rate and are scheduled to amortize over a set period of time, typically 30 years. All types of real property can be, and usually are, secured with a mortgage and bear an interest rate that is supposed to reflect the lender's risk.

Mortgage lending is the primary mechanism used in many countries to finance private ownership of residential and commercial property (see commercial mortgages). Although the terminology and precise forms will differ from country to country, the basic components tend to be similar:

Property: the physical residence being financed. The exact form of ownership will vary from country to country, and may restrict the types of lending that are possible.

Mortgage: the security interest of the lender in the property, which may entail restrictions on the use or disposal of the property. Restrictions may include requirements to purchase home insurance and mortgage insurance, or pay off outstanding debt before selling the property.

Borrower: the person borrowing who either has or is creating an ownership interest in the property.

Lender: any lender, but usually a bank or other financial institution. (In some countries, particularly the United States, Lenders may also be investors who own an interest in the mortgage through a mortgage-backed security. In such a situation, the initial lender is known as the mortgage originator, which then packages and sells the loan to investors. The payments from the borrower are thereafter collected by a loan servicer.

Principal: the original size of the loan, which may or may not include certain other costs; as any principal is repaid, the principal will go down in size.

Interest: a financial charge for use of the lender's money.

Foreclosure or repossession: the possibility that the lender has to foreclose, repossess or seize the property under certain circumstances is essential to a mortgage loan; without this aspect, the loan is arguably no different from any other type of loan.

Completion: legal completion of the mortgage deed, and hence the start of the mortgage.

Redemption: final repayment of the amount outstanding, which may be a "natural redemption" at the end of the scheduled term or a lump sum redemption, typically when the borrower decides to sell the property. A closed mortgage account is said to be "redeemed".

Many other specific characteristics are common to many markets, but the above are the essential features. Governments usually regulate many aspects of mortgage lending, either directly (through legal requirements, for example) or indirectly (through regulation of the participants or the financial markets, such as the banking industry), and often through state intervention (direct lending by the government, by state-owned banks, or sponsorship of various entities). Other aspects that define a specific mortgage market may be regional, historical, or driven by specific characteristics of the legal or financial system.