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Local Edition ORIGINATION in the fourth quarter instead of selling them, forgoing about $340 million of fee revenue, according to the company's filing. The bank also recorded a $644 million pre-tax charge to reserve for payment of a settlement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve Board. Wells Fargo, along with nine other servicers, entered into an $8.5 billion agreement with the agencies in ALTA Unveils 'Best Practices' Standards Releasing evaluation and analysis on policies and procedures, the trade group rolled out new guidance for the title insurance industry. were $220 million, up from $142 million in the prior quarter. In the filing, the bank attributes the increase "primarily to MSRs valuation adjustments made in the third quarter for increased servicing and foreclosure costs." The company's residential mortgage servicing portfolio is an estimated $1.9 trillion. In addition, losses for mortgage loan repurchases dropped to $379 million from $462 million in Q 3. Wells Fargo held onto its oneto four-family conforming loans early January in order to end the Independent Foreclosure Review and repay consumers. Wells Fargo's portion of the cash settlement—in proportion with its share of serviced loans in the population set aside for review—is $766 million. The bank also committed an additional $1.2 billion to foreclosure prevention actions. With this settlement, Wells Fargo will no longer take any more costs associated with the foreclosure reviews, which had recently approximated $125 million per quarter, the bank said. The M Report | 45 se c on da r y m a r k e t While the financial institution posted record profits in the final quarter of 2012, lending slowed as originations and applications declined during the period District of Columbia // The American Land Title Association (ALTA), a national trade association for the land title insurance industry, released a set of "Title Insurance and Settlement Company Best Practices" created to help members highlight policies and procedures used to ensure a "positive and compliant real estate settlement experience." "ALTA is publishing these best practices as a benchmark for the mortgage lending and real estate settlement industry," said ALTA CEO Michelle Korsmo. "The best practices are voluntary standards professionals can adopt to protect consumers, promote quality service, provide for ongoing employee training, and meet legal and market requirements." The list includes seven "main" best practices for title and settlement professionals, including establishing and maintaining current licenses as required to conduct title insurance and settlement services business; adopting and maintaining a written privacy and information security program to protect non-public personal information; maintaining appropriate professional liability insurance and fidelity coverage; and maintaining procedures for resolving consumer complaints. A full copy of the document can be found at ALTA's website. a na ly t ic s Wells Fargo Reports Dip in Originations California // Wells Fargo pulled in a record net profit of $5.1 billion in the final quarter of 2012, up 24 percent from the same period in 2011, according to the bank's quarterly filings. Total profits for 2012 were $18.9 billion, up 19 percent from the year before. Revenue for the year increased 6 percent from 2011 to reach $86.1 billion. In the fourth quarter alone, revenue was $21.9 billion (up 7 percent year-overyear). Mortgage banking noninterest income was $3.1 billion for Q 4, up $261 million quarter-overquarter. However, originations took a slight dive, dropping to $125 billion compared with $139 billion in the third quarter. The "In addition to the benefit to our customers, we are very pleased to have put this legacy issue behind us and to have removed the future costs associated with independent foreclosure reviews," said bank chairman and CEO John Stumpf. s e r v ic i ng bank also revealed a dip in applications, which fell from $188 billion in Q 3 to $152 billion in Q 4. Refinances made up 72 percent of applications, unchanged from the third quarter. The quarter ended with an application pipeline of about $81 billion, down from $97 billion at the end of the third quarter. While originations and applications slipped, net mortgage servicing rights (MSRs) results Or ig i nat ion home shoppers who want free and easy access to all the listings in their area." The relationship between the two companies began in 2010, when Century 21 became the first national franchisor to participate in Zillow's advertising platform. Now, 34.7 million monthly visitors to Zillow, Inc.'s mobile apps and websites have direct access to homes for sale from the world's largest residential real estate sales organization. "Our relationship with Zillow has empowered our agents with a valuable marketing program, providing extraordinary reach and visibility for their listed properties," said Bev Thorne, chief marketing officer at Century 21. "We look forward to continuing our relationship with Zillow to help our agents reach tens of millions of consumers through Zillow's mobile apps and websites."