Today, the Community Home Lenders Association (CHLA) commended Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, for sending a letter to Chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan, urging robust review of the proposed acquisition of Black Knight, by the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).
“CHLA applauds Chair Waters for requesting the FTC to review the ICE/Black Knight merger and realizing the negative, unintended consequences it would have on small lenders,” said CHLA Executive Director Scott Olson.
In the letter, Chair. Waters stated:
“Combined, this merger would make ICE the largest mortgage services company in the housing ecosystem based on market capitalization. If this deal closed as proposed, the resulting conglomerate could exert significant market power over loan pricing for consumers, access to and sale of consumer data, and mortgage software pricing.
“A combined ICE and Black Knight could harm small lenders that rely on vendors for their technology needs by significantly disincentivizing responsible innovation and inhibiting vendor competition given the dominant market share of ICE.”
This past June, CHLA sent a letter calling for an antitrust review of the merger, to the Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Financial Protection Agency, Federal Housing Finance Agency, and Federal Housing Administrator.