And keeping up with regulatory change can be difficult, especially for banks that rely on purchased software and for loan officers who do not specialize in mortgage lending, but rather make the occasional mortgage loan to satisfy a customer need. Traditional community lending is totally different than sub-prime lending.
But it is difficult to make that distinction if regulatory requirements use the interest rate on the loan as a proxy to identify sub-prime loans. No one can argue with the need for stronger regulation to prevent the lending abuses that led to the current foreclosure crisis.