Illinois Adopts Shared Appreciation Agreement Regulations
Illinois is the latest of a handful of states to require brokers, servicers, and originators of “Shared Appreciation Agreements” (SAA) to be licensed and regulated under their mortgage licensing regimes. SAAs are a new type of consumer financing secured by home equity, generally interpreted to include products commonly known as “home equity contracts,” “home equity investments,” or “home equity agreements.” In 2025 the Illinois Legislature amended the Illinois Residential Mortgage License Act of 1987 (RMLA) to govern SAAs and in June 2026, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation amended its mortgage regulations to cover SAA activities.
A “shared appreciation agreement” is defined as “a writing evidencing a transaction or any option, future, or any other derivative between a person and a consumer where the consumer receives money or any other item of value in exchange for an interest or future interest in a dwelling or residential real estate or a future obligation to repay a sum on the occurrence of an event, such as: (1) the transfer of ownership; (2) a repayment maturity date; (3) the death of the consumer; or (4) any other event contemplated by the writing.”
Why It Matters:
“Under the RMLA, a person must be licensed and comply with certain requirements to engage in the business of brokering, funding, originating, servicing or purchasing residential mortgage loans. Accordingly, under the amended RMLA, a person engaged in the business of brokering, funding, originating, servicing or purchasing shared appreciation agreements must be licensed and comply with the requirements under the RMLA and the Final Regulations.”
FinCEN Ends BOI Reporting for All US Persons
Link: https://www.fincen.gov/boi/newsroom
FinCEN’s final rule, effective August 14, 2026, permanently ends beneficial ownership (BOI) reporting for U.S. companies and U.S. persons under the Corporate Transparency Act — and FinCEN will delete previously reported U.S. person data.
Why It Matters:
If your company was formed in the United States, you do not need to file a BOI report — and FinCEN has said it will delete BOI previously reported by U.S. persons from its database.
Is the Era of General-Purpose AI Models Over?
Link: https://www.pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2026/companies-want-to-own-their-ai-not-rent-it?
“Enterprises are realizing that renting the same general-purpose artificial intelligence model as every competitor is a losing strategy. Prompting the same closed system erases any edge, and every query hands proprietary business data to an outside AI lab. Running that model can also cost five to 10 times more than a specialized alternative, according to Oumi, a Seattle startup founded by engineers who previously worked at Google, Microsoft and Apple.”
Why It Matters:
The company launched what it called a “Compounding AI Factory” that automates deployment of a specialized model that continuously retrains on data from the model’s own real-world use. Companies like Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan have also developed their own in-house systems. Such systems can be five to 10 times less expensive than the general-purpose alternative.
The issue is that these specialized models require organized data. However, in one survey, 85% of executives across industries described their data as fragmented or only moderately integrated—and you cannot train a specialized system on data that is not organized. This could help make data organization an even greater priority for financial services organizations.
