(1) Mortgage loans are a substantial form of revenue for the financial sector. Mortgage loans generate billions of dollars in the financial sector. It's no secret that companies have the ability to make a lot of money by offering a variety of mortgage lending products. The problem was not mortgage lending, but the fact that mortgage companies used unethical behavior to get consumer mortgage loans approved. Unfortunately, the Countrywide Financial case was not an isolated case. Many reputable mortgage companies have been guilty of unethical behavior. Just as the American housing market began to recover from the worst crisis since the Great Depression, a new scandal, an epidemic of incorrect or fraudulent mortgage documents, threatens to send not only the housing market but the entire economy into a tailspin (Nation, 2010). National finance became greedy and started making questionable and unethical decisions to make money. Countrywide Financial preyed on consumers who couldn't qualify for conventional loans and those who could earn more with subprime loans. Countrywide was found guilty of mortgage fraud. The U.S. government is seeking to make Bank of America Corp. pay nearly $864 million in damages after the company was found responsible for mortgage fraud (Subramanian, 2013). (2) Subprime loans are ethical but their misuse has created ethical problems. Subprime loans are loans made to borrowers, typically people who would not qualify for traditional loans, at a rate higher than the prime rate depending on factors such as credit score, down payment, debt-to-income ratio and loan defaults. payment (Ferrell, O. ., Fraedrich and Ferrell, L., 2010). Subprime loans help consumers obtain mortgage loans who do not qualify for a conventional mortgage loan product. It is standard practice for financial companies to charge consumers with poor credit history higher interest rates. It is justifiable because consumers with bad credit histories who have had trouble repaying other creditors in the past pose a greater credit risk. Subprime mortgages are no different. Subprime lending becomes an ethical issue when financial companies use unethical practices to make subprime loans just to make more money. (3) The collapse of Countrywide Financial was the result of the company's unethical practices. Countrywide wanted to make home loans available to consumers who wouldn't otherwise qualify for a traditional home loan product. Subprime loans are priced higher due to the borrower's risk.
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