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UBS AG has reached a $230 million settlement to resolve charges brought by New York state that it misled and hurt investors by selling subprime mortgage securities that contributed to the 2008 global financial crisis, Reuters reported. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman yesterday said that the Swiss bank will pay $41 million in cash to the state, and provide $189 million of relief to homeowners and communities. The bank is the seventh to settle similar claims by New York, resulting in roughly $3.93 billion of settlements. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have also settled, as did Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, which reached a $500-million accord on March 6.

Congress wants to accelerate a shake-up of one firm’s dominance over the credit scores used to vet many U.S. mortgages, the Wall Street Journal reported. Lawmakers last week proposed adding a provision to a bank-deregulation bill that would require mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to consider credit scores beyond Fair Isaac Corp.’s FICO score for determining a mortgage applicant’s creditworthiness. Fannie and Freddie backed nearly half of all U.S. mortgage dollars originated in 2017, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. The measure, should it become law, would be a big win for VantageScore, a credit-score system by VantageScore Solutions LLC, owned by three large credit-reporting firms: Equifax Inc., TransUnion and Experian PLC.

Mortgage servicers are about to have “more latitude” when it comes to dealing with borrowers entering or exiting bankruptcy, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced yesterday, HousingWire.com reported. The CFPB announced a final rule relating to certain borrowers facing bankruptcy. The rule was initially released by the CFPB back in October, but now the bureau is finalizing the rule. According to the CFPB, the final rule is the same as the previously released version. In an announcement, the CFPB explained that its 2016 mortgage servicing rules requires servicers to send modified periodic statements or coupon books to certain consumers in bankruptcy, beginning April 19, 2018. The rule also dealt with the timing for servicers to move from providing or ceasing to provide modified periodic statements to consumers entering or exiting bankruptcy.

The U.S. Supreme Court dealt hedge funds and other big investors a blow yesterday by refusing to revive core parts of lawsuits that challenged the federal government’s capture of billions of dollars in profits generated by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Bloomberg News reported. The justices provided no comment on why they rejected appeals filed by Perry Capital LLC, Fairholme Funds and other Fannie and Freddie shareholders. The rebuff leaves intact a federal appeals court ruling from a year ago that sent Fannie and Freddie shares plunging.