Why do you suppose they chose to settle for billions of dollars if they were innocent? I fully understand a lot of times banks or companies will settle to avoid public courts and additional legal fees...being in their financial best interest to pay a few million dollars to avoid a long and drawn out public fight, which could cost them much more in damages and additional legal fees.
As far as admitting guilt....depends on which part of the process you are referring to.
Blatant misrepresentations of loan quality
Willful negligence of proper disclosure
Fraudulent valuations of properties
Extremely questionable foreclosure processes
Robo signing of legal documents
Now I do agree in a lot of the cases of foreclosures, the home purchaser may have over extended themselves...I fault anyone who tries to "keep up with the Jones's" for willfully over extending themselves for "bigger and better" homes. I also fault the banks for allowing these loans to originate knowing full well in a lot of cases that the purchaser most likely will not be able to make the payments, or the true valuation of the home will eventually put them under water.
Lost jobs....retirement....injury...devaluation...all plausible ( but not necessarily right ) reasons for one to bail on a mortgage....but when it can be attributed to a bank failing to properly evaluate and disclose true value of a home (allowing the purchaser to spend more than it's worth...not properly valuing the home....or more than they can afford....not adequately qualifying the purchaser ), or in the case of RMBS sales to FnF....not disclosing the fair market value and quality of loans within those RMBS...I have a feeling that banks were more on the guilty side than innocent side as they were fully aware of the substandard values of a lot of those loans, and either failed...or deliberately misled disclosing the true values of bundled RMBS packages. Not in all cases...but certainly in a lot of them.
100% the banks fault...not at all....but
guilty or not....there is an undisclosed reason they chose to settle for billions.
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
AI
