Borrowers

Millions of student loan borrowers will be eligible to lower their payments and consolidate their loans under a plan President Barack Obama intends to announce Wednesday, the White House said. Obama will use his executive authority to provide student loan relief in two ways. First, he will accelerate a measure passed by Congress that reduces the maximum repayment on student loans from 15 percent of discretionary income annually to 10 percent. The White House wants it to go into effect in 2012, instead of 2014.

The rate of late payments for auto loans fell nationally in the first three months of the year to the lowest level in more than a decade, even as lenders financed more vehicle purchases for high-risk borrowers. For the January to March quarter, the rate of U.S. auto loan payments at least 60 days overdue declined to 0.36 percent, or down about 27 percent from the same period last year, credit reporting agency TransUnion said Wednesday. That's also down about 22 percent from the last three months of 2011.

NEW YORK - Tens of thousands of Bank of America Corp.’s most distressed borrowers could be evicted and lose their homes more quickly as a result of a proposed settlement between the bank, which is the country’s largest mortgage servicer, and investors in its troubled mortgage securities. For struggling borrowers in better financial shape, the outcome could be more positive: The deal would include incentives for mortgage servicers to help homeowners who have fallen behind on their payments and whose homes are worth less than what they borrowed.

As you watch the Celtics submit their own peculiar brand of Jekyll-Hyde basketball, please keep in mind one thing. This is Year 5 of a three-year plan. By rights, the Celtics easily could have been the Pistons already. But they could find themselves in the Finals. If you ask me, they've been playing with house money for two years. They're already handling what could be considered their declining years better than the original Big Three did. The overall circumstances of the respective Big Threes are different, beginning with the fact that Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish...

NEW YORK — Bank of America Corp. said yesterday it has contacted 10,000 of its most troubled mortgage borrowers about its new loan forgiveness program. The country’s largest mortgage servicer expects the first modifications to start in late June, Jack Schakett, a company credit loss mitigation executive, said on a conference call. In March, the company rolled out a relief plan to reduce the mortgage principal by up to 30 percent for those homeowners who have missed at least two monthly payments and owe 20 percent or more than their home is currently worth.

More than 450,000 borrowers who were charged excessive fees by Countrywide Home Loans when they fell behind on their mortgages will finally begin receiving the $108 million the company agreed to pay in a settlement struck with the Federal Trade Commission in June 2010, the agency said yesterday. The number of consumers recovering money in the settlement is the biggest in FTC history and wound up being double what the commission had estimated. "It is astonishing that one single company could be responsible for overcharging more than 450,000 homeowners, which is more than 1...

Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen says borrowers in the state will receive about $119 million in benefits from loan modifications and other direct relief as part of a $25 billion deal with the nation's biggest mortgage lenders over foreclosure abuses. Jepsen says an estimated 7,500 Connecticut borrowers who lost their home to foreclosure from Jan. 1, 2008, through Dec. 31, 2011, would qualify for about $1,500 in cash payments. Federal and state officials announced the deal Thursday.

Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange says a $25 billion settlement involving the nation's five largest mortgage lenders over foreclosure abuses provides much-needed relief to Alabama borrowers. Strange says the deal also puts a stop to many of the bad behaviors that contributed to the mortgage mess in Alabama and across the U.S. Federal and state officials announced the deal Thursday. Under the agreement, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial will reduce loans for nearly 1 million households.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s flagship mortgage-relief effort is failing to ease the foreclosure crisis as more than half of those who have enrolled have fallen out of the program. As of August, approximately 680,000 homeowners who applied to get their mortgage payments lowered, or about 51 percent, have been disqualified, the Treasury Department said yesterday. That’s up from about 48 percent in July. The report gives ammunition to critics who say the program has failed to slow the tide of foreclosures.

Considering the eccentric, almost psychedelic fantasy worlds created in Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki's tales, a story of tiny people living beneath the floorboards of a house seems almost normal. "The Secret World of Arrietty," from Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli, also is a pleasant antidote to the siege mentality of so many Hollywood cartoons, whose makers aim to occupy every instant of the audience's attention with an assault of noise and images. Slow, stately, gentle and meditative, "Arrietty" nevertheless is a marvel of image and...

Citizens of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates who defaulted on hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans could soon see their debts wiped away. State news agency WAM reported Sunday that the president of the Gulf federation is ordering the settlement of personal debts of up to 5 million dirhams ($1.4 million) for citizens in default. The order by Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan covers citizens detained for unpaid debts and those whose cases are still being reviewed. Debtors in the Emirates face imprisonment while in default.

LOS ANGELES - US credit card users are getting better about making their payments on time, even as banks are increasingly issuing cards to borrowers with less-than-stellar credit. The rate of payments at least 90 days overdue dipped in the first three months of 2012 to 0.73 percent, credit reporting agency TransUnion said Wednesday. That was down from 0.78 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 and 0.74 percent in the first quarter of last year. While the rate increased in the second half of last year, the broader trend has seen delinquency rates decline...

The difference between the interest rates demanded by investors for Spanish and German 10-year bonds has shot past the 500 basis point barrier, reflecting mounting concerns over the future of the eurozone. With mounting speculation that Greece may leave the euro in the coming months, investors are getting increasingly fidgety about the survival of the currency. The Spanish bond yield jumped 14 basis points to 6.46 percent shortly after trading began Wednesday. The benchmark German bund was down at 1.45 percent as the country benefited from its perceived safe-haven status.

France's borrowing costs fell in a bond auction that sold (EURO)7.4 billion ($9.7 billion) in long-term debt. The yield, or interest rate, on the largest issue — a 10-year bond — edged down from 2.98 percent to 2.96 percent when it was last issued in April. Another class of 10-year bond saw a far more significant drop from 3.29 percent to 2.85 percent when it was issued in January. In another sign of investor confidence, demand was high and the amount of money raised in Thursday's auction was at the very top of the range set out by the French Treasury.

Coming so soon after the real estate collapse, a new home mortgage with low rates, small down payment, and easy terms may sound either too good to be true, or a little too much like the reckless lending that contributed to the mess. But the new mortgage product comes from an arm of the state government, MassHousing, which has a reputation for sober lending practices and sound finances. It features extremely low down payments - as low as 3 percent - and no mortgage insurance, which requires borrowers to pay hundreds of dollars a year in premiums if they do not have much equity in their homes.

Italy was forced to pay higher interest rates of 1.77 percent in the latest sale of its six-month bonds. That compares with 1.11 percent in the last sale a month ago. Italian rates, or yields, are rising as concerns about the eurozone's debt crisis are renewed. Italy easily raised (EURO)8.5 billion ($11.23 billion) in an auction Thursday that was oversubscribed 1.7 times, compared with 1.5 times a month ago. Markets have been jittery over the French elections and Italy's acknowledgment that it won't balance its budget until 2015, instead of 2013 as pledged.

WASHINGTON - The government’s mortgage relief plan has helped only about 12 percent of borrowers who signed up since President Obama unveiled the program a year ago. The Treasury Department said yesterday that as of last month, about 116,000 homeowners had completed the application process and had their loan payments reduced permanently. That compares with more than 1 million homeowners who started the process. More than 61,000 homeowners have dropped out, either because they failed to make payments or did not return the necessary paperwork.

A program that caps student loan payments for those who earn modest salaries is now open to more borrowers. Two groups in particular should take note: married couples and anyone who has put off repayment through a deferment program. Some background: Last year, the Education Department introduced a program called income-based repayment that caps monthly payments on federal student loans at 15 percent of the borrower’s income. Eligibility is determined by weighing income against the size of the monthly loan payment.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and his likely GOP opponent, Mitt Romney, agree on an issue of importance to college students: Keeping the interest rate low on a popular federally subsidized student loan issued to low-and middle-income students. The interest rate is scheduled to double on July 1 from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on subsidized Stafford loans unless Congress acts. About 7 million undergraduates would be affected, raising costs by an average of $1,000 each, according to the White House.