A report by federal regulators released yesterday said that 14 mortgage servicers have signed consent agreements promising changes including new oversight procedures, according to an article in today's edition of The New York Times by David Streitfeld.

The report said that "banks did a poor job of handling the flood of foreclosures over the last several years, in some cases even moving ahead with evictions when they clearly should not have," the article said.

John Walsh, acting comptroller of the currency, told reporters in a conference call that "the banks are going to have to do substantial work, bear substantial expense, to fix the problem."

The article said that JPMorganChase, one of the servicers signing the agreement, said it was adding as many as 3,000 employees to meet the new regulatory demands.

Consumer activists, however, were unimpressed, saying the reforms let the banks police themselves, the article noted. Alys Cohen of the National Consumer Law Center, a non-profit consumer advocacy group, said that "the banks who caused the economic crisis and received government bailouts are getting a free pass while homeowners still struggle to save their homes."

The Federal Reserve said that problems at the servicers were "significant and pervasive" adding up to a "pattern of misconduct and negligence" and it said it planned to announced monetary penalties for the servicers it regulates at a later date," the article said.

The report said that mortgage servicing units of the banks did not properly oversee their own or third-party employees at law firms, had inadequate and poorly trained staffs and improperly submitted to the courts.

Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, said the report was "vague and toothless."

An article in today's edition of The Wall Street Journal by Victoria McGrane, Alan Zibel and Robin Sidel said that Mr. Walsh told reporters that "there will be civil money penalties; the question is timing and amount. But we're not letting that clock run forever."

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said that "this doesn't change what we're doing," referring to the 50-state investigation by attorneys general.

The article said that Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, said that the consent agreement appears to require only "modest changes" to banks' foreclosure process and is unlikely to have a big impact on the housing market or broader economy. Still, he add, "the foreclosure process will remain bogged down and a true bottom in the housing market elusive" until the banks reach a complete settlement with the state attorneys general," the article said.