The U.S. Federal Reserve presented a report detailing its efforts to help Americans cope with the foreclosure crisis, and Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a speech that federal banking regulators expect preliminary results of their review of the nation’s latest foreclosure mess to be ready next month.

“We are looking intensively at the firms’ policies, procedures and internal controls related to foreclosures and seeking to determine whether systematic weaknesses are leading to improper foreclosures,” Bernanke said at a Fed and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. sponsored conference on foreclosures and the future of housing finance. Bernanke didn’t address monetary policy or the economic outlook in his speech.

Following the financial crisis, the Fed last year launched a controversial $1.7 trillion bond-buying program to help keep mortgage rates low. What’s less known is that the central bank has also been working to respond to the foreclosure crisis on “Main Street,” using its research and regulation functions to support foreclosure prevention and neighborhood stabilization strategies in local communities.

The report, presented alongside a Chicago Fed housing conference with Bernanke, comes amid recent concerns about questionable foreclosures, along with the recent frenzy of disclosures about so-called robo-signers who raced through paperwork without reviewing it.

U.S. banking regulators have been reviewing reports that some of the nation’s largest mortgage servicers are improperly foreclosing on homes, using questionable practices and making significant errors along the way. “We take violations of proper procedures seriously,” Bernanke said.

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(Read More: WSJ)