No one is taking market share quite like Wells Fargo: Wells Fargo now makes twice as many mortgage loans as any other lender. In 2011, Wells accounted for 26.8 percent of all loans. Bank of America, with 11.6 percent, and Chase, with 11.5 percent, were next in line. B of A dropped 8 percentage points, falling from 19.5 percent in 2010.

Five of the nation’s top nine mortgage lenders in 2007 were no longer in business in 2011. Countrywide (1st), Washington Mutual (sixth), Wachovia (7th – now part of Wells), ResCap (8th – now part of GMAC), and IndyMac (9th) are all gone.

The economy might be improving, but getting a loan is getting harder. In 2009, when the sky was falling and bankers were going without bonuses, lenders still originated $1.8 trillion in mortgage loans. By last year, lending had dropped 34.5 percent from ’09. Things were so bad in 2009 that some bankers were not even getting bonuses. Wait. No. That is not true. Goldman Sachs paid its employees a bonus of, on average, $595,000 in 2009.  However, by other indicators, things were harder: six million Americans were looking for jobs.

We have lost a lot of equity in our homes. According to the Federal Reserve, homeowners have lost $7 trillion in home equity. That’s four years of mortgage loans. It means that Americans now have less than half of what they had in their homes back in 2006. A lot of folks have called the gradual pull back in household debt “the Great Deleveraging,” but it might also be called the Evaporation of Home Equity.

Deleveraging is Overstated: Americans have less debt, but a lot of that is a product by millions of foreclosures on aggregate sums of household debt. In fact, US households have recently taken on an additional $20 billion in non-mortgage debt – things like student loans, car loans, mobile home loans, and credit card debt. In other words, the shrinking mortgage loan market is complemented by an expanding consumer credit supply.

FHA is in trouble: Almost 10 percent of FHA loan debt was classified as “seriously deliquent” and 17.8 percent were more than 30 days delinquent.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is clear about its intent to pay attention to how financial products are represented to the public.

“On transparency and disclosure,” says Richard Cordray, “a key insight here is that more disclosures don’t always make things better. As it accumulates, there can be so much dense, fine print that it can actually make things much worse. Consumers find it hard to penetrate, and they often will not read it. That’s a concern, and that’s why we’re trying to make things more transparent, simpler and clearer with our “Know Before You Owe” project.”

Here is a simple page count of the disclosures that accompany basic checking accounts at some of the big banks.

Wells Fargo: 86 pages

JP Morgan Chase: 36 pages (deposit account agreement)

Citigroup: 37 pages

US Bank: 2 parts of 6 pages and 28 pages.

Fifth Third: 12 pages – basic checking.

Bank of America: This is the hardest disclosure to count, although it is also the one with a well-linked index. The online banking agreement for checking has 11 sections of between 2 and 13 sub-parts. The deposit services agreement contains 23 parts of between 2 and 26 parts each.

Since I am having so much fun with the earnings reports for alternative financial services companies that are coming out right now, I want to take a chance to look at the news from Rent-A-Center.

Rent-A-Center makes its money by selling furniture, electronics, and appliances to people. (more…)

A few interesting facts that I have gleaned from recent news reports:

Taxes for Wells Fargo: Less than zero. According to a report from Citizens for Tax Justice, Wells Fargo earned 49.3 billion from 2008 to 2010. During that (more…)

Dollar Financial reports that it has secured a renewal on its current line of credit. In an announcement dated December 30th, Dollar (ticker: DLLR) said that the new line will afford it more flexibility and on favorable terms.

The $200 million line is offered by a syndicate and facilitated by Wells Fargo. The line can be used (more…)