Regulators, mortgage industry to promise aid

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will on Wednesday join leaders of the mortgage industry and consumer groups to announce cooperative efforts to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

An epidemic of home loan failures prompted the Treasury Department to hold foreclosure prevention meetings with a variety of mortgage industry leaders and consumer groups in recent months. At a gathering tomorrow, Paulson will explain how the government can help industry and non-profits do more to help people save their homes.

Treasury spokeswoman Brookly McLaughlin declined to discuss details of the alliance, but said it has "grown out of several meetings" with mortgage servicers, lenders, investors and other mortgage market participants.

Paulson in September called mortgage servicing executives to a meeting at the Treasury and urged them to identify and offer refinancing and other assistance to troubled borrowers facing big upward resets of their mortgage payments. Among participants in the meeting were embattled Countrywide Financial Corp. Chairman Angelo Mozilo and top managers from Wells Fargo & Co. , CitiMortgage Inc., HSBC and JP Morgan Chase.

On Wednesday, Paulson will be joined Alphonso Jackson, the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, who will discuss how his department has retooled its programs to reach today's troubled borrowers.